


a million different reasons

by canardroublard



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, and accidentally hurting each other along the way, caught in that painful process of trying to work through their traumas, three very damaged and imperfect people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-19 15:27:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 29,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15512844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canardroublard/pseuds/canardroublard
Summary: Napoleon Solo spent so much of his life taking. Taking, taking,taking, and laughing in the face of the law.Now, however, he watches the sun slip bronze around Gaby's bare arms, gold through Illya's honeyed hair, and he wants, wants,wants.But this is one thing he cannot simply take.





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

 

_hold me, you._

_tightly, because all I've known how to_

_do so far is run._

 

* * *

 

 

_**beaulieu-sur-mer** _

For so many years, Napoleon Solo had thought that the C.I.A. was his ultimate penance; sweating and swearing away his sentence under the government's all-seeing eye, all for the alleged crime of taking for himself a small helping of beauty from those too wealthy to even miss it. But later he discovers that the C.I.A. was a mere detour. An odd sort of purgatory.

Now, as he sits two tables away from his partners, ignoring the bustle of the café in favour of watching them, he realizes that the universe is far more canny than he'd ever given her credit for in devising a punishment for all of his time spent taking, taking, taking.

The September sun slips bronze around Gaby's bare arms, gold through Illya's honeyed hair. And Napoleon's mind, forever humming with art history information for which he no longer has any useful outlet, unhelpfully suggests that even Klimt, with all of the gold and silver leaf in the world, could never produce a painting to rival the dazzling radiance of these two people. Or to rival the sheer temptation of them.

Napoleon stares through the crowd, unable to finish the coffee past the longing ache in his chest, and he wants, wants, _wants_.

But this is one thing he cannot simply take.

 

_**istanbul** _

It hadn't started like that. In Rome, Illya had been more rival than anything else; Gaby, a responsibility to mind, not even his. Maybe some small corner of his brain, the one which he knows was inflated and pathologized in his file under the hopelessly crude term 'womanizer', had noticed the strong set of Illya's shoulders, the graceful curve of Gaby's neck, but he'd had more pressing concerns.

Namely, finishing the mission as soon as possible, so he could unhook this pair of irritatingly persistent thorns from his side.

Then Istanbul in the height of summer, a roiling mélange of heat and crowds and sweat, stuffed into a cramped safe house with the two people who had somehow become his partners. From the very first, Illya was tetchy, grumbling about his new master, his new mission, and anything else that was close enough to be resented. It took all of three hours before he was stalking around the flat like a tomcat whose ears were pinned back, tail twitching. Then Gaby picked a fight with him, something that Napoleon never knew the crux of because he only caught Illya slamming the front door and pushing into the crowd, his blond hair bobbing above the sea of faces before disappearing around a corner.

Despite the row, once she'd sent Illya off, Gaby was oddly eager to accompany Napoleon on an errand which didn't require her presence. Scarcely paying her any attention, Napoleon trundled through the twisting stone streets, irritated with Illya's disappearing act for some reason he couldn't figure out.

Unaccustomed as he was to having a partner to mind, Napoleon was so caught up in constructing a mental argument with Peril, which he was winning, that it took him a few seconds after rounding a corner to realize that Gaby was no longer at his shoulder. After a brief, panicked search he found her a dozen paces back, frozen as she looked up above the crowd.

Napoleon followed her gaze to find her staring up at a minaret of some relatively unimpressive mosque which he hadn't even noticed. Her head was tipped back, brown curls tumbling off her bare, bronze shoulder, eyes wide with awe. Only then did he realize what a shame it was that this intelligent, curious person had been stuck for her whole life in the banality of East Berlin.

When she noticed his attention, Gaby startled slightly, tucking her wonder away as if she'd revealed some weakness. Then she pushed past him with an acerbic aside about him surely having better things to do than stare at her.

But as they passed another mosque, he was unable to resist glancing at her, and found her gazing up at the graceful spire yet again.

Once the mission was concluded, he convinced her and Illya, cautiously reconciled, to join him on a walk, leading them along until the narrow streets unfurled to reveal the Hagia Sophia, its white stone blushing in the sun's last light. It wasn't Napoleon's first time there, and Illya's stubborn indifference was too difficult to read, but it was obvious that Gaby had never seen anything quite like it.

After a moment of wary stillness, like she was expecting this to be a trick, something presented only for the cruelty of being withheld, Gaby all but raced towards the sacred site, Napoleon and Illya tripping after her without question. As they got closer her face brightened, eyes darting with almost wild determination, seemingly still terrified that someone would tear her away before she'd sated her thirst. And then, stepping into the great hall, her mouth dropped open in disbelief as her gaze was pulled up to the shimmering dome above them.

If Napoleon hadn't been standing so close, caught as he was in her orbit, he would have missed the reverent, awestruck sound that escaped her chest.

_"Oh...!"_

In retrospect, if he had to pinpoint when it all started going wrong for him, this might well have been it. Because that tiny gasp of wonderment got stuck in his head, burnt into his brain, the pure joy of it making Napoleon look at her, truly _look_ at her, for the first time, watching her lips crook up in a hesitant, giddy smile.

It was captivating. Entrancing. Devastating enough to knock all of the air from his chest.

Shaking himself, he dragged his gaze away from her, suddenly feeling the voyeur. He glanced around and found Illya on her other side. His face, too, was fixed in an expression of surprised awe. But he was looking only at Gaby.

Mercifully, Waverly plucked them from the city before Napoleon had time to start doing foolish things like taking his new partners to museums and galleries, struck by a strange desire to lavish them with sheer beauty.

 

_**athens** _

In Athens, Illya once again complained about the heat. But this time Gaby coaxed him into shedding his suede and wool for cooler clothes, which had taken no effort on her part as Illya seemed almost desperate to please her. Napoleon suspected that if she'd told him to, the man would've tried to shed his own skin.

One morning, awakened by visions of Rudi von Trusch's sweaty, manic face and the blinding sense-memory of his entire body afire, Napoleon stumbled down to the hotel pool with the intent of watching the sunrise, a natural phenomenon which he generally tried to avoid witnessing at all costs, in some measure of peace. But the quiet he sought was interrupted by a steady pulse of kicks and splashes, Napoleon turning the corner to discover a long, masculine form knifing through the sky’s glassy reflection.

Reaching the end of his lap, Illya burst forth, snorting and tossing his head. He frowned at the sight of Napoleon, like he'd been caught doing something he'd have rather kept private. Still, he clambered from the pool, water sluicing across his skin, tripping off his fingers and chin; the tiny droplets glowing in the predawn sun like so many daubed pointilisms of pastel light by Signac.

As he stalked over, Illya snagged a towel and buried his face for a moment before slinging the cloth across his shoulders. Then he was glowering and dripping and blocking the view until Napoleon huffed and told him to sit down.

Once Illya folded himself into the next chair, Napoleon assumed they would remain in the begrudging silence which, for the the vast majority of their current acquaintance, had been customary in the space between their arguments. But Illya, darkened hair sticking to his forehead, began to speak in Russian, the faint awkwardness of his English stripped away to reveal a voice deep and lyrical as the bass of a church organ. Despite Napoleon's slightly rusty grasp of the language, he still managed to understand Illya's explanation: that he needed to prove to himself, after the near drowning of Rome, that he could still do this. That his body and mind were still at his command, not broken by circumstances beyond his control.

Napoleon looked down at his own hands then, seeing straps and electrodes and feeling the wood of that torture chair crumbling into splinters. Remembering the shame-filled hour he’d spent, once he had a moment alone, pulling those splinters from under his nails. Splinters which he didn't even remember driving into his own skin, as he'd clawed with the blind desperation of a fox in a snare.

Then he looked left, to the man who had freed him and whom he, in turn, had saved. They had both had a choice. They could've walked away, left the other for dead. For whatever reason, Napoleon still didn't quite know his own, they had gone back for each other.

They watched the sunrise together, comfortably silent. Much later, after Gaby had glided across the pool deck and settled on the edge of Illya's chair, Napoleon looked left again, watching Gaby shamelessly help herself to most of Peril's breakfast and all of his coffee while he just gazed up at her, not even bothering with the pretense of annoyance, both of them grinning and radiant. And Napoleon started to suspect the reason that he'd gone back for them.

 

**_budapest_ **

The weather in Hungary was far more agreeable to Illya, but that mission also brought endless waiting as they cautiously surveilled the building across the way, trying to catch a glimpse of their target.

Illya was the best at such work, his natural diligence helping him endure the hours of focused boredom which both Napoleon and Gaby found exhausting. It also gave Napoleon an opportunity to sit on the couch and run his eyes along the muscles of Illya's back, wishing that it was his hands traipsing across such lovely terrain. Their actual interactions may have still been stilted at best, fractious at worst, but the C.I.A. had ordered Napoleon to do far more intimate things with people he'd found far more unpleasant. So there was no harm in a bit of idle admiration, he told himself.

Some Wednesday or another, or perhaps a Tuesday, he slumped onto the couch after Illya relieved him from his shift, unable to find the energy to move further. Before he'd had much time to himself, ignoring Illya silent at the window behind him, the door clicked open and Gaby called out a greeting, her footsteps so quiet that Napoleon could tell, even with his eyes shut, that she'd wandered down the hall from her own flat in her bare feet.

The sofa creaked as she dropped onto the other end, making Napoleon open his eyes. And then something skipped or lurched or raced in his chest at the sight of Gaby, soft and clean and shower fresh, cheeks pink, a stray droplet rambling down the side of her neck before she caught it. With one hand—her left, since she'd sprained the other wrist last week—she began combing through her loose, damp hair.

She smelled clean, too. Napoleon wasn't trying to notice, he really wasn't, but when he remembered to breathe he found himself awash in the faint scent of her shampoo, something light and floral and dizzyingly pretty.

Before she caught his gaze, he yanked his eyes away. Instead he stared at the unspeakably hideous painting which had come with the flat. Squinting, he deduced that the scene of a little girl in a pinafore was an amateurish pastiche of Renoir, somehow managing to capture all of the banality and nauseated haziness which made Napoleon loathe so many of his works.

He did so well distracting himself, beginning to get thoroughly irritated with this insipid little painting, that he jolted slightly when Gaby prodded him and asked if he would paint her toenails, since she couldn't with her bad wrist. Before he'd had time to consider all that this would entail, he numbly agreed, and she thrust the little bottle into his hands and her feet into his lap with a look which made it clear that he'd best not mess this up.

Her body twisted, turning to talk to Illya over the back of the sofa, as Napoleon gazed down at her toes. He didn't know why he felt so nervous all of a sudden. Feet had never been his _thing_ , not like that, but this wasn't about sex. Sex he could handle. Yet he tried to remember the last time he'd helped anyone with such an intimately mundane task and came up totally blank. Couldn't even remember being asked.

And now, in what he was learning to be typical Gaby fashion, here she was, glaring murder yet trusting him more than anyone had in years.

Before he could overthink this any further, Napoleon grasped her ankle, intending to shift her foot into a better position. Stilling under his touch, Gaby fell silent, making Napoleon freeze. Something was burning the back of his neck, but he couldn't tell if it was the noonday sun or Illya's gaze. But just as Napoleon was about to pull his hand away, Gaby released a strangely forced breath. Then she told him to hurry up and get started.

The colour he discovered when he uncapped the bottle was so incongruous with her firestorm personality that he found himself grinning. Pink and sweet as a summer peach. Downright girlish; though he'd never call it that to her face.

Her feet were ticklish. He found this out when he wrapped his fingers around her other foot, provoking a surprised yelp as she swore at him, accidentally kicking his ribs with her unvarnished toes. But she was smiling in between the profanities, so Napoleon feigned a mortal wound, opening his eyes only long enough to wink at her when she gave him another kick, this one deliberate, and told him to stop being so silly.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd had this much _fun_ , either; simple, pure fun. It was intoxicating.

After he had settled down and finished her toenails, Gaby flopped back against the far arm of the couch, her calf quivering under his hand while she stretched like a contented cat. She didn't move after she relaxed again, leaving his hand on the silken skin of her leg, her feet still in his lap.

It took him a long time to glance back at Illya; to work up the courage. Illya was staring at the two of them, expression strangely unreadable for a man who was usually terrible at hiding his emotions. They locked eyes for a second. Two. Then Illya blinked, swallowed, and went back to staring out the window.

 

_**delhi** _

With the surveillance shifts of Budapest, Napoleon had barely seen his partners together apart from that one afternoon, and in that time he almost managed to forget the attraction between them. But in Hong Kong, back to working together, Illya and Gaby continued to circle each other, drawn in by chemistry or magnetism or some other unreckonable science. Returning to form, Illya was terrible at hiding it, so much that even the target noticed the connection between these supposed strangers. And Napoleon was growing sick of being stuck in the middle.

Hong Kong went a bit wrong. They ended up having to rescue Illya, though they didn't get to him until his captors had already done a number on his hand. After that, Waverly told them to take a couple of weeks off to straighten out their heads and, as applicable, fingers.

They could have gone their separate ways. Maybe they should have. But Gaby said something about wanting to visit India, and less than a day later Napoleon found himself in Delhi, the air dense in the final days of monsoon season. Illya clearly viewed the entire climate as a personal affront, his misery only compounded by his injuries.

When they reached their hotel, overlarge Illya clambered from an oversmall taxi and became a full head higher than the crowd; painfully, almost comically conspicuous. For a moment, Napoleon was certain that the glowering man was about to do something that would get them kicked out of the hotel before they'd even checked in. But then Gaby let out a chuckle, tucking herself under Illya's good arm, and grinned up at him, both of them seeming to forget everything but each other.

As Napoleon watched them, cautiously circling each other but approaching something real, a vaguely nauseating weight settled into the space behind his solar plexus. It was something he hadn't felt the likes of in years; since he'd been a teen, a boy, really, and there had been a girl. The age-old story. But Katie MacIsaac had only had eyes for Billy Morris, a year older and infinitely more desirable for it, at that novice stage of life when the completion of a single extra trip around the sun is still a noteworthy accomplishment.

(Though nothing came of it either way. Billy's blood ended up blackening the sand in Normandy, that precious extra year of his letting him enlist earlier than Napoleon. Early enough that he saw real combat. And Napoleon stayed on, forgot everything except attempting not to drown in the horror of it all, and in the process forgot the girl, too, until now. Life's a funny old thing, sometimes.)

Shaking himself out of the memories, he was back to sweating in the heat of Delhi, looking on from the sidelines as Gaby beamed up at Illya and Illya beamed right back down at her. Something ached in Napoleon's chest.

He excused himself from the day of sightseeing, making up some lie about wanting to see an old army buddy and barely managing to ignore the way Illya squinted in confusion and Gaby frowned, their bewildered disappointment almost enough to change his mind. Whether they believed his plastered-on smile he didn't know, but they left arm-in-arm, Gaby turning back to wave at him through the crowd.

Meaningless sex, as it so often had, became his escape. He found a blond who was too short and whose eyes were a shade too dark, and urged him to be quiet so that his broad Liverpudlian accent would stop ruining Napoleon's mood.

Alone the next morning, stumbling into Illya at breakfast, Napoleon glanced at him and felt himself scowl. He hadn't even made the connection at the time. But there was no way that Illya would know, so he conjured up a pleasant smile and insinuated himself at Illya's table. They made a stab at conversation, which ended as well as their previous attempts: with Illya needling him about capitalism and America, and scolding him for disappointing Gaby, reminding Napoleon why he'd sought less challenging company.

Yet as he remembered the warm body below him, who had neither expected nor meant anything but physical release, Napoleon realized that for the first time in years, he regretted taking the easy option.

 

**_oslo_ **

With Illya and Gaby playing at domesticity again in Norway, married, this time, Napoleon got no reprieve from witnessing their tentative courtship, hidden as it was beneath layers of subterfuge. Illya was _staggeringly_ awful at the entire thing. It would've almost been funny, if it weren't so agonizing for Napoleon to witness.

But, perhaps inevitably for such strong personalities, Gaby and Illya were soon clashing again, Gaby sending pointed little digs across the table all through breakfast while Illya tried to soothe her, every effort only provoking another burst of return fire.

As Napoleon watched her wary ferocity, the way that Illya's coaxing just made her dig in further, he couldn't help but think of her C.I.A. file. Specifically, those three months, just as the war was ending, when she'd simply vanished from all record.

He'd almost asked her about it a few times. But he already suspected, if not her exact story, then the general shape of what happened. During those same months in Germany, Napoleon had seen far too many Gabys, sickly thin and roaming the streets, never old enough, always desperate for help but leery of that which seemed to be offered too freely. So whatever had happened, he was certain that she'd learned her caution for a good reason.

Illya's war experience had undoubtedly left its own scars, Napoleon knew, but at least he'd had a family. A broken one, perhaps, but still had people who did their best to shield him from the worst of it. And perhaps that was why, despite Illya having done his research, too, he hadn't seemed to have made this connection. Reading something in a file is vastly different from having witnessed it, and though Napoleon knew that their experiences didn't compare, he and Gaby had at least walked their own lonely paths through the same hell.

It felt wrong to give Illya more than the barest hints of this, as much as Napoleon wished to make him understand. Not his story to tell. So he said what little he felt able to share, leaving Illya to ponder while Gaby affixed him with the stare of a junkyard dog who's had to fight for every scrap of its meager life and then snaps at anyone who offers to bring it in from the cold.

So it came as a complete surprise when Gaby knocked at Napoleon's door that evening, just after he'd gotten out of the bath, pushing into his hotel room while growling about how she could not spend one more night sharing a room with _him_. Faintly miffed at her assumption that he would be alone, faintly gratified that she'd chosen to come to him, Napoleon watched as she helped herself to a bottle of overpriced cheap vodka from the minibar and plopped down on the sofa, sprawling unselfconsciously in her boyish pajamas as she took a drink of such length that he was both mildly aghast and more than a little impressed.

The sight of her so comfortable around him that she was already letting her head loll on the back of the sofa, lazily huffing some wayward hair out of her face, made his next decision easy. He excused himself to the bedroom of the suite, found the slip of paper that had been pressed into his hand at the bar, and phoned to cancel his tryst. It had just been a distraction to keep his thoughts away from whatever his partners could be doing, sharing a room a few floors up.

Gaby surprised him again when he sat next to her. He reclaimed the vodka for a swig, making her snort in amusement, then passed it back, falling silent as she began talking. And talking. Not that Gaby had ever struck him as particularly quiet, but she'd never seemed given to speaking for its own sake. Yet as she ranted about how she didn't know what to do about the way Illya looked at her or how that made her feel, how he was so sweet and she didn't want to be pushing him away but it was all she knew how to do, Napoleon ceded the floor, too dumbstruck by her trust to speak anyways.

After she'd said her fill and filled herself with most of the vodka, Gaby astonished him once more. He was starting to suspect that this was something at which she was uniquely talented. This time, she simply fell asleep, her head slumping against his shoulder while the bottle dangled dangerously from her limp fingers. Napoleon snatched it away to safety, then stared down at her as her nose scrunched up adorably for a moment before she relaxed further into his side. Then he looked away, feeling vaguely guilty for noticing the warmth of her small body.

Eventually he decided to pick her up, nearly dropping her when she nuzzled into his chest with a muzzy, contented sigh, her arms curling around his neck as he walked into the bedroom. He put her into his bed and, when he was considering a night on the sofa for himself, jumped about a foot into the air at the sound of her voice, low, warm, commanding him to stay, all while her slender fingers alighted on his wrist, arresting him with the pull of her presence.

As he lay across from her in the dark, listening to her soft breaths and needing every last ounce of his willpower not to turn and wrap himself around her, Napoleon began to realize that he was truly, deeply in trouble.

 

**_guatemala_ **

Guatemala stalled, leaving the trio with more time to kill than ways to kill it while they waited by the phone to hear from a jumpy contact. It was theoretically winter, but the seasons mean different things so close to the equator. Having learned from the squabble with Gaby in Istanbul, Illya wisely limited his grumbling about the heat to low mutters while he lost game after game of chess to himself.

Napoleon picked all of the locks he could get his hands on, unsuccessfully seeking a challenge, leaving him frustrated and antsy.

As the only one who enjoyed the weather, Gaby sunbathed, stalking the crawling beams of heat like a languorous cat, cultivating a stunning tan which Napoleon spent a great deal of time very carefully not noticing. An increasingly difficult exercise as the days went by and her summer wardrobe revealed bare legs and shoulders and daring peeks at the small of her back when she chose that white and green dress with the cutouts. And then, as she grew brave, she produced a bikini from somewhere, strolling through their rented house and grinning wickedly when Illya stammered and stared with far too much diligence at her face.

The day after the bikini appeared, Napoleon found Illya at the back door, eyeing Gaby in the garden with the dread of a man who'd heard a siren song and knew all too well his own fate, yet still couldn't bring himself to sail away. As they looked on, Gaby turned her back to the sun, reached behind herself, and untied the strap which ran under her shoulder blades, which had covered nothing but maintained some concrete pretense of modesty.

For a brief moment, Napoleon was certain that Illya would faint dead away. But instead an endearing rosy tinge bloomed on his ear tips, spread to his cheeks, then plunged down his throat.

When Napoleon ventured out into Gaby's domain, since it became abundantly clear that Illya would not, she turned her head to greet him with a lazy smile, the lean muscles of her back rippling under an expanse of perfect, lightly freckled skin. Suddenly struck by the image of Gauguin's reclining Tahitian nudes, and cringing at how this comparison cast him as the voyeur, Napoleon averted his gaze as he dropped into the next chaise longue, waiting for her to cover herself or shoo him off; waiting and waiting until he concluded, with a lurch of his stomach, that she wasn't going to do either, leaving him wondering when, exactly, he had earned this trust.

"He's watching me, isn't he?" she murmured, outwardly nonchalant. But there was a slight hesitancy to her voice that made Napoleon suspect that the question wasn't quite as rhetorical as she'd tried to make it sound.

"He is," Napoleon confirmed. Shifting a little, Gaby seemed to considered this, while Napoleon's eyes were inexorably drawn to the pearl-string line of her spine. When he tore his gaze away, he found her eyeing him, biting her lip before she spoke again.

"Are you?"

In this pair of words, she nailed him with two perfect shots. Tight grouping in the ten ring, centre mass, straight through the heart. Yet once Napoleon got past his panic and examined her expression, he found her watching him with such guarded curiosity that he suddenly understood that this was Gaby carefully testing the heart-stopping power of her own womanhood. Despite the attempted bravado, her salvo was a little clumsy, like she'd never really worked up the nerve to try this before now. Never trusted anyone with the potential rebuff.

This, he realized as she awaited his response with wide eyes, was something that he could _not_ get wrong.

"Yeah, I am." He did his best to keep the response simple and factual, praying that this honesty was what she needed. "Always."

The last word was a mistake. Not because it was untrue but because it was too true. Too revealing. Kicking himself, Napoleon struggled to keep his eyes from darting away in shame or fear as she fixed him with an endless look of scrutiny.

Then she glanced away, made a soft "hmm", and turned the other cheek. A clear dismissal.

After that, he only let himself watch Illya watching her. It seemed less dangerous.

 

**_singapore_ **

With Gaby elsewhere, held in reserve by Waverly to work another angle of the same case, Singapore became the first time that Napoleon and Illya were forced to reconcile themselves to each other's presence without her as a buffer.

Early their first morning, Napoleon wandered into the kitchen of their flat just as Illya let himself in the front door, clearly returning from a run. Ever succinct, Illya grunted in greeting, eyeing Napoleon for a moment before disappearing into the bathroom.

They began small, with a terse exchange of banalities over breakfast once Illya returned from the shower. But day by day they loosened into cautious conversation as they mapped the boundaries of each other's sore spots. Eventually they discovered a shared interest in literature; Napoleon's a little rusty but eccentrically broad, Illya's more narrow in scope but deep in his favourite authors. In the evenings they played chess until Illya grew bored of winning and Napoleon sick of losing, then they began to share small pieces of their pasts, stories that started inconsequential but became increasingly personal.

Napoleon was stunned to find, after months of reluctant camaraderie, resentful jockeying, and a bit of idle attraction on his part, that he actually rather _liked_ Peril.

And Illya kept running each morning, to Napoleon's growing dismay. Though it wasn't the running itself that bothered him. It was what began happening on the fourth morning when, instead of wordlessly going to take his shower, Illya produced a greeting beyond the usual monosyllable and stopped to lean against the counter while Napoleon poured himself a coffee. Then, mid-sentence, Illya gripped the hem of his sweat-soaked shirt and promptly stripped it off.

Napoleon scalded himself with the coffee.

Grinning and half naked, Illya started to tell him about the nice dog he'd met on his run. Napoleon tried to make the appropriate noises of interest and tried to stare at the eggs he was supposed to be scrambling and above all tried _not_ to stare at Illya's bare chest. He was successful with at least two of those endeavours. When Illya concluded his story, he finally went to the bathroom, and Napoleon breathed a sigh of relief.

Until it happened again the next morning.

And the morning after that.

Illya loves dogs, a fact which Napoleon deduced after the third consecutive dog report, the kitchen filling with affectionate portraits of shaggy shepherds and tiny terriers, described with an unstymied enthusiasm that Napoleon would've never expected from his typically gruff partner. And Illya remembered the name of every dog.

Napoleon only caught half of it, absorbed instead by the way Illya's eyes went soft as he spoke about his favourites, the precise sweeps of his beautiful, large hands when he illustrated the size of a particularly small spaniel, the flush of exertion which lingered on his chest, skin glistening almost obscenely, a tantalizing path of tawny hair disappearing into his shorts.

In a moment of irrational paranoia, Napoleon wondered whether his partners had made some unholy pact to suddenly tempt him with their casual displays of skin; to drive him senseless with want.

If they had, it was working.

 

**_tokyo_ **

If he'd thought that the first months had been difficult, the next few were exquisitely painful as, unable to turn away, he watched Illya's and Gaby's spirals grow tighter; planets caught in the pull of each other's gravity, doomed to collide.

He spent those months sitting on the sidelines. At a country club ballroom, sipping a Scotch and watching Illya trip over his own feet and Gaby roll her eyes but grin up at him. Receiving his own offers to dance but turning them down with ruthless disinterest. In a park, the two of them curled up next to each other on a picnic blanket under the kaleidoscope shade of an elm tree, while Napoleon pretended to read the paper on a near-but-not-too-near bench and waited for the target to show.

In Tokyo, they crammed into a tiny back-alley restaurant, Illya folding himself into the corner while Napoleon got the food. Gaby insisted on ordering for herself, making him recite the Japanese phrase until she managed to say the whole thing, winding her hands through the crook of his arm and absolutely beaming with pride while the old woman behind the counter chuckled at her antics.

While he ordered for himself and Illya, Gaby began talking animatedly about all of the Japanese cars they'd seen, and how much she'd like to have a better look at their guts, all while still clinging to his arm, her breathless enthusiasm suddenly throwing him back to the Hagia Sophia all over again; so many months later, and he was still captivated by her. Now more than ever.

When he tore his gaze away from her, he found the proprietor smiling at them fondly.

" _You two remind me of me and my husband, when we were young. I miss him so terribly. How long have you been married?_ "

Something stumbled in Napoleon's chest. "Uh..."

" _Sorry, too fast? How long have you—_ " the old woman repeated more slowly.

" _No, it's fine. My apologies,_ " Napoleon managed to get out. At that point, he should have corrected the assumption. It wouldn't have been difficult. But the kindly woman was smiling up at him with wistful eyes, and Napoleon's denial got lodged in his throat.

" _Not even a year,_ " he said. It wasn't entirely a lie. It had been less than a year. That figure just happened to be counting from the day he'd wandered into the chop shop.

As they began to eat, Illya's eyebrows darted up in surprised pleasure. But he said nothing, never one to play the gourmand unless the cuisine was proper Russian fare. Soon, however, his meal devolved into a series of bitten-off curses as he struggled with the chopsticks. Gaby laughed and slid into the seat next to him, nudging him with her shoulder. Her clever fingers had already mastered the new utensils, and a few seconds later she was feeding Illya in between her own bites, freely plucking morsels from all three plates as Illya pretended to be grumpy. They couldn't seem to stop smiling at each other.

Won't be long now, Napoleon thought, staring across the space between him and his partners and finding himself unable to continue eating past the lump in his throat.

 

**_boston_ **

Napoleon's predictions turned out to be overly optimistic. In Boston they were dead in the water again, waiting on a source who had left them hanging for weeks. Once again, idleness brought out the worst in them. But with the spring weather damp and cold, Gaby in particular seemed at loose ends. Whenever they could get away, she would drag Napoleon out to wander the city, not bothering to invite Illya after his fourth refusal. He seemed to view sightseeing in America as a tacit approval of the entire country, and truculently stayed put.

On days when Gaby's antsiness was at its worst, she would hunt down and gut mechanical objects in the safehouse. At first it was almost charming, the sight of her elbows deep in some device and happier for it. But quickly it became a nuisance, when Napoleon went to turn on the TV or Illya the radio, only to find them dismantled. Some she reassembled, but most she did not, seeming too restless to complete any one project. But apart from half-hearted rebukes, the subject was edged around.

Until the toaster.

On that fateful Wednesday morning, Napoleon arose second, while Illya was out running but Gaby was still asleep. Wandering into the kitchen, he released a frustrated breath as he eyed the drawn and quartered remains of Gaby's latest victim on the table, the innocent toaster clearly having been set upon during the night in her most recent bout of insomnia.

As he puttered, making coffee and eggs, grabbing the loaf of bread before remembering and tucking it back, he tried to convince himself that Illya, already grumpy with the delays and the weather and the location, wouldn't react too badly. The man's desire for routine may have bordered on pathological, but surely Peril could forgo his customary toast for one morning. Surely, if he could forgive anyone, it would be Gaby.

It didn't go as badly as he feared.

It was so much worse.

Illya stalked down the hall a short while later, pissed off at what more or less seemed to be everything, and froze at the kitchen doorway, blinking down at the debris field.

"What ha—?"

"Gaby."

A muscle twitched in Illya's cheek. Then he went to take a shower.

Things only worsened when Gaby, frayed around the edges like she'd managed maybe four hours of sleep, marched into the kitchen, grumbled that Illya had woken her coming in from his run, and stole a muffin off the sullen Russian's plate, which was already conspicuously empty for want of toast.

At some point during the ensuing argument, around when Gaby was shouting that Illya needed to stop making everything into such a big deal and Illya was muttering that Gaby needed to stop running away from things just because they became complicated, it occurred to Napoleon that this might be about more than just the toaster.

After Illya stormed out, Gaby collapsed into the nearest chair, her eyes hard and dangerous. Then, after a moment of stillness, she dragged over the remains of Illya's breakfast and devoured it with a sort of ravenous spite that Napoleon had never before witnessed. She disappeared for a shower, stomped around and swore for a while, but eventually re-emerged, unfurling her tool roll on the table and running reverent fingers along each dismembered toaster part, like some ancient soothsayer reading the future in a spread of animal entrails. Letting his third coffee grow cold, Napoleon busied himself with some paperwork and pretended not to watch her progress.

He must not have been very good at pretending, because a minute later Gaby snorted some hair away from her face and told him to either stop staring or start helping. So he rolled up his sleeves, unsure what to make of how Gaby watched this motion, then began gathering screws and springs, taking a bit of pride in the way her eyes darted to him in surprise when she was muttering "pass me the—?" and he had already placed the required item into her cupped palm.

By the time Illya came back, they were sprawled out on the couch, watching Frankie Valli warble and croon on the newly reassembled television. With a shake of his head and a gentle chuckle, Illya plopped down next to Napoleon, murmuring a soft apology across him, which Gaby cautiously returned. Everyone relaxed a little.

"This man sings very strangely," Illya commented, tilting his head like a confused dog. Gaby's arm shot out, pressing into Napoleon's chest as she gave Illya a shove, telling him to be quiet and let her listen. Illya obeyed. Napoleon, too, said nothing, basking in their presence, fighting against the urge to sway closer and press a kiss to Illya's cheek, Gaby's forehead. Wishing he could spend every evening like this.

All too soon, Illya rose, pulling himself off the sofa and declaring that it was time for bed. At the words, Gaby made a soft groan and snuffled into Napoleon's shoulder, making him realize, with a jolt, that she'd fallen asleep against him. Then they had both murmured their goodnights and disappeared, leaving Napoleon alone on the couch, achingly cold from where his partners had been warm at his sides.

 

**_east berlin_ **

The safehouse in East Berlin was comfortable enough, objectively. But sleep continued to elude Napoleon, even after he made another half-hearted fidget in his bed. And the cause wasn’t his sore ankle.

No, what kept him awake was his mind. He tried to close his eyes again, willing himself to relax, knowing that it wouldn't happen. A cool breeze came in through the window, creeping across the bare skin of his neck, and the sensation was enough to make him wince. The agonizing sense memory of electricity shot through his body and he gritted his teeth, letting out a hiss as he tried to banish the images of his torture.

He'd thought he was over it. Until today, when he'd been disarming a rickety old security system while Gaby held his tools and Illya kept watch. The shock that he'd gotten from the frayed wiring had been, objectively, not very severe. But the moment that he'd felt it, he'd been lost, caught up in the panic of never wanting to feel _that_ again. And then, in his haste to get away, he'd tripped over his own feet and twisted his ankle.

Having a vulnerability like this was new. New and unnerving. At the C.I.A. he couldn't afford to show any weakness, since Sanders was itching to send him back to prison. Napoleon had no clue how Waverly would react.

A soft tap at his door interrupted his worries, making him glance first at his watch (it was late), and then call out that the door was open. Gaby's brown eyes peered at him from the hall.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asked, after she said nothing. He he knew by now that she had a quiet side, which she usually hid behind snark. She made an evasive noise in her throat, then pushed into the room, remaining wordless as she paused a few feet away from his bed, stared at him, then looked away and bit her lip. One of her feet picked itself up, pressing against her other calf in a nervous motion which Napoleon watched with confusion. He hadn't the faintest idea why she'd be nervous around him, and the thought made an uncomfortable lump appear in his throat.

"You okay?" he murmured. She stilled, then muttered something about being fine. Since she showed no initiative to either talk or leave, Napoleon began some inane quip about what a day it had been, but then she cut him off.

"I'm sorry," she blurted out, finding the courage to meet his gaze. Unfortunately, Napoleon didn't have the slightest idea what she was apologizing for. His confusion must have been evident on his face, because she continued.

"For Rome. When you got..." She looked to her feet again, letting the sentence hang unfinished. "I should've said something sooner, but I wasn't..."

"Oh." Not particularly coherent, but he was so stunned that it was the only thing he got out. Until that moment, he hadn't even realized that he'd needed to hear an apology from her. A strange flood of emotion rushed through him, relief and bitterness and others that tumbled by too quickly for him to identify.

Gaby flinched, taking his reaction as a rejection, and turned to leave, but Napoleon called her name and she froze.

"Thank you," he said. He wished he could say that he'd never blamed her, that no resentful thought had ever crossed his mind, but he couldn't. He shifted, a hiss escaping his lips at the fresh flare of pain in his ankle. In less than a second Gaby was by his side, asking if he was okay.

"It's fine," he replied. It wasn't _really_. It was throbbing and painful. But complaining had been punished in the army, ridiculed in the C.I.A., so why bother if no one cared?

Gaby just raised a dubious eyebrow.

"It's..." Napoleon sighed. "It hurts. Hurts like hell. Can't get comfortable."

"You should put it up. It helps with the swelling," Gaby pointed out. Before he could react, she was sitting on the edge of the bed, bundling up the spare blanket, encouraging him to raise his leg, then stuffing the roll under his ankle. “And you need to ice it more, in the morning.”

After he hummed in thanks, silence settled between them. He glanced up at her, seeing the half-moon shadows under her eyes, remembering the last time he'd been in East Berlin; when he'd first met her. Remembering the steel in her voice when she'd grimaced at those high heels and told him that she would _not_ go back behind that wall. Then he thought back to just a week ago, when they had walked up to Checkpoint Charlie and Gaby had frozen, her hands spasming around his arm, staring up at the Berlin Wall like a person who'd just escaped a tiger cage and had then been ordered to go back in.

"Are you okay?" he asked, looking down at her hand, clenching around the blanket next to his hip. "Being here?"

"I'm fine," she grit out, so rushed that it had to be instinct. Then she paused. "I don't know," she corrected herself, voice quavering with exhaustion. She was forever making herself look braver, tougher, bigger; so consistently that Napoleon was still learning how much that bluster cost. The amount of _life_ it sapped from her.

"Anything I can do to help?"

Her jaw quivered with a repressed yawn as she shook her head. "I don't know," she repeated. "I just can't...Every time I close my eyes I get so nervous. Like someone is going to..." Not letting herself finish the thought, she made strangled sort of chuckle. "It's stupid. But I haven't slept more than an hour at once since we got here and I'm _so_ tired."

"Keep me company?" he offered, knowing that she'd never accept help unless he made it seem like she was doing him a favour. Sure enough, she glanced at him, then nodded, curling up next to him with a fatigued sigh. He shuffled over to make room, which Gaby occupied immediately, almost greedily, melting into his side. She wriggled around with a drowsy snuffle, then stilled, gathering another sigh in her chest before releasing it in a grateful breath.

"G'night, Gabs," Napoleon murmured.

"Schlaf gut," she mumbled absently, already halfway asleep.

 

**_quito_ **

The evening sun was warm in Ecuador, heating Napoleon's back as he put the last careful strokes of strawberry pink on Gaby's toenails. She'd long ago abandoned the pretense of needing help for this, had abandoned even bothering to ask; it had simply become part of their routine, accepted and unquestioned by all three of them. Perhaps he should have been annoyed by her presumptiveness, but he cherished the time with her and she seemed to enjoy it just as much, always ending up relaxed, her skin soft under his hands as she chatted with Illya.

Once Napoleon was done, she leaned over to examine his work, her hair brushing his forearm as she made a languid hum of approval. Then, nudging his shoulder with her own, she tilted her head, gave him a dazzling smile, and more or less commanded him to give her lockpicking lessons. Since it was something he'd been meaning to do anyways, he agreed. But even if it hadn't been on his agenda he wouldn't, if he were being totally honest, have turned her down. Turning Gaby down was just not something that he ever seemed to manage with any sort of regularity or conviction. And she knew it.

The next day he bought a few simple locks and met Gaby back on the balcony, choosing his most basic tools so she would learn to do this the right way, not relying on Illya's absurd gadgets. Demonstrating with exaggerated motions for her novice gaze, Napoleon narrated as he went, watching her eyes narrow in concentration. Then it was her turn.

From the start he could see that her approach wouldn't work, putting too much pressure on the bump key, her hand making naïve jabs with the rake. After a few minutes of unsuccessful coaching and frustrated growls from Gaby, Napoleon, before thinking it through properly, reached over, stilled her stuttering hands by engulfing them in his own, and adjusted her grip on the tools.

“Like this.”

It was perhaps a testament to his dedication to lockpicking that he spent the next few seconds fixated on the task, staring off into space while he found the familiar motions and worked around the encumbering presence of two extra hands. He didn't notice, for those seconds, the way that Gaby had gone completely still. Only her silence, conspicuous after the previous torrent of sotto voce German profanities, made him realize that something had changed.

He paused and looked over at her. She was staring at their interwoven hands. Following her gaze, he examined for the first time the sight of her slender digits peeking out from the gaps between his own, noticing that the pad of his index finger was pressed gently against one rounded, strawberry pink nail.

When he glanced back up, they locked eyes for a moment. Gaby's skin was _impossibly_ soft under his hands.

Then Gaby ducked her head, letting out a huff. Napoleon yanked his hands away, clenching them into fists as he unseeingly looked at the street below them.

From his left, there was a metallic creak followed by a click. Belatedly, he realized that he had actually managed to pick the lock in those scant seconds of concentration. Still refusing to let himself look at her, he muttered something about what a good job she'd done, leaving it unsaid that she'd been more passenger than driver.

"Thanks," she said, quiet.

"You must be excited to show Illya," he heard himself replying, unsure why but hating it.

A brief pause settled between them.

"Right. Illya." Gaby took a breath. "He'll be thrilled."

"Yep," he said inanely. Shaking himself, he reached for the next lock, setting it on the table before her and still not finding the courage to meet her gaze.

Throughout the rest of their lesson, Gaby seemed oddly quiet, as if thinking very hard about something other than the proper way to align the pins with the shear line. Napoleon, meanwhile, could feel himself talking far too much, but he was desperate to distract himself from the dread that he'd somehow just fucked things up with one of the two best people he'd ever known.

 

**_monaco_ **

It, the long-awaited _it_ , finally happened in Monaco. The case was closed and spirits were both running high and flowing freely as the trio celebrated in Illya's hotel room. From the armchair, Napoleon gazed at his partners sharing the sofa; Gaby all but in Illya's lap, Illya just beaming down at her, and he felt that longing, wanting _ache_ again.

Once it became too painful to keep watching, he rose and, expecting little more than a distracted wave in response, made his excuses.

"Oh," Gaby said, the smile slipping off her face as she stared up at him.

For a brief second, he squinted at her, trying to understand the reaction. But before he could make sense of it, Illya fixed her with a strange look, and she bristled.

"Right. Fine," she added, turning away. Back to Illya. "See you in the morning."

Something crumpled in Napoleon's chest, some incautious little sprig of hope that he hadn't been aware of until she had crushed it.

After an hour of failing to sleep in his own lonely room, unable to suppress visions of what his partners could be doing, he went out, found a bar, and found a willing body. Once it was over, he turned away from the stranger in his bed, shifting uncomfortably at the hollow, leaden feeling in his stomach. Waking to find the other side of the mattress cold came as a relief.

At the hotel restaurant that morning, Illya floated into the chair across from him with assurances, too knowing for people who spent the night apart, that Gaby would be down soon, and a loose, giddy expression which could've gone into the dictionary next to "post-coital".

A surge of heartsick emotion writhed up Napoleon's throat, leaving him stunned. Then he hated himself for it. Faintly queasy, he resorted to the old standby: sarcastic innuendo.

"So, did Gaby keep you _up_ last night?"

Illya choked on his coffee, but denied nothing, while Napoleon felt something else in his chest go up in flames.

 

_**milan** _

"...so I told the ambassador, 'look, I'm not going to ask why you need twelve goats, but it's going to take me a bit to find—Gaby?" Napoleon paused in his rambling, barely a coherent story, to stare down at Gaby, curled up next to him after she'd crawled into his bed an hour ago complaining that Illya's nightmares had woken her up.

"Gaby?" he whispered again. In response, she started snoring. Finally. He had been starting to get worried. With one partner attended to, Napoleon climbed out of bed and slipped down the hall, pausing as his toes met the sheet of light emerging from under Illya's door.

"Can I come in, Peril?" he asked with a light knock.

After a long pause, "fine" was muttered through the door. Napoleon pushed through it to find Illya glaring at him from the bed.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine."

Napoleon sighed, screwing his eyes shut. "She's worried."

"Tell her not to worry. I'm fine."

"Oh for God's sake," he hissed, far too tired to put up with Illya's typical bullheadedness. "I _can't_ tell her that because she just fell asleep again. You and your damn nightmares woke her up, so she comes and keeps me up, and then we're all sleep deprived and miserable because you're too damn stubborn and you won't just talk to her about this."

"It's not...I tried. But she wouldn't understand," Illya replied, gruff as a cornered bear.

"Look, I get that you're scared of hurting her when you're..." Napoleon gestured in Illya's general direction "like this. But you can't keep kicking her out every time you have a nightmare."

A confused frown slid onto Illya's face. "That's what you thought?" After Napoleon confirmed this, Illya continued. "No, I offered to go. She told me to stay here. So she goes to you. Of course."

" _Of course?_ " Napoleon questioned, irritation prickling him at the censure in Illya's voice, like _Napoleon_ was the one doing something wrong here.

Illya raised a skeptical eyebrow. "She doesn't like sleeping alone anymore. And when was the last time you said no to her? How many times do you cancel dates because she wants to spend time with you? You spoil her too much. So of course she runs right to you. Much easier than actually _talking_ to me."

Napoleon opened his mouth to refute Illya with examples of him refusing Gaby all manner of things, but was stunned to find he couldn't think of any. Stumbling, he ended up retorting. "Oh, and you don't spoil her? You were turning yourself inside out to please her at first."

"At first, yes. But in Boston, after that argument, I realize that she is not good at boundaries. Anything she is offered, from me or you, she takes. Even if she shouldn't. Needs to be told 'no', sometimes. Is not deliberate, I think, but she never had much, growing up, and she is still sometimes a bit..."

"Young?" Napoleon provided with a sigh, acknowledging what Gaby hated to be reminded of, but what both he and Illya understood to be true. Despite her grit and how staggeringly competent she was at almost everything she tried, she was still just _young_.

Illya nodded. "Yes. You and I both see this. And this is why I trust you with her, because you realize this. And I see you with her, I trust you not to take advantage. But things cannot continue like this. Every time she and I have big problem, she runs to you. If it was just me and her, I think we would talk more about things. Understand each other. But it's not just me and her, you are always with us too. You are an easy escape. So she uses you."

"I wouldn't say she _uses_ me," Napoleon said, uncomfortable with the word, uncomfortable with the suspicion that his discomfort was likely due to it being more true than he wanted to admit.

There was a peculiarly blank look in Illya's eye now, one that Napoleon recognized. He had initially taken it for ignorance, but now knew that it was Illya pretending to misunderstand English, a tactic which he employed to say things more bluntly than he could otherwise get away with. Napoleon rolled his eyes.

"Well, either way," Illya demurred, seeming to realize he'd been caught, but not admitting it, "I can't get anywhere with her, make progress, if you keep doing this. I'm not saying you have to stop talking to her. Even if I wanted to control her, I couldn't. She is her own woman, as she tells me," he added with a chuckle. "But maybe you need to...put up a boundary."

It wasn't what Napoleon wanted to hear. Not at all. But despite that, he could see Illya's point. Damn that man for his stupidly good observation skills.

"Maybe," Napoleon conceded, deflating from the fight he'd been gearing up for. "I'll think about it," he added as he raked a hand through his hair, suddenly _exhausted_. Then he remembered that Gaby was still in his bed. So much for putting up boundaries. He sighed. "You okay for tonight, Peril?"

"I'll be okay," Illya confirmed.

Turning to leave, Napoleon paused. "You know you can talk to me too, right? I know she'll listen, but I'm guessing what you're dealing with isn't stuff you want to unload on a civilian?" he asked, waiting on Illya's nod before continuing. "I'm not quite special forces, but if you need someone who at least kinda knows what it was like, well, you know where to find me."

Glancing at him for a long moment, Illya nodded, then looked away. “Thank you, Cowboy. Goodnight.”

“G’night, Peril.”

 

**_bern_ **

It was quiet in Napoleon's hotel room in Bern. Though the previous day had been anything but. Gaby had done well since Rome, she hadn't gotten captured once. But her luck couldn't have held forever.

But she was fine now. He needed to remind himself of that. She was fine, two floors down, getting fussed upon by a worried Illya. Just what they both needed, though neither would admit it. Leaving Napoleon alone, staring at the ceiling and trying to find enough energy to crawl under the bed covers.

His descent into maudlin self-pity was interrupted by a clicking, scratching sound from the door, so faint he almost missed it. Once he recognized the noise, he continued his skyward stare and began to count. Twenty-three seconds later, the lock snicked open, a wedge of light stabbing into the darkness before the door closed again.

"Twenty-three," he murmured. "Not bad. What did you use?"

"Hair pins," replied Gaby's voice as she shuffled closer.

He dragged himself up to sitting as she alighted, not, as he'd expected, on the far side of the bed, but in the middle. Making him realize, with a nervous skitter of his heart, that somewhere between Oslo and here he'd started leaving space for her. She curled around her tented knees and let out a tired groan.

Napoleon asked if Illya was in bed. It wouldn't be the first time that Illya had fallen asleep and insomniac Gaby had sought Napoleon's company. But she gave him a look which clearly suggested he was being stupid. And to make it unambiguous, she added a clipped "no."

Trying not to show his surprise, Napoleon considered this. Despite Illya being awake and undoubtedly worried sick, she had shunned him to seek out Napoleon. He couldn't quite figure that out. Yet from Gaby's silence he could tell that she was cultivating another thought. Probably something about the day from hell she'd just lived through.

"Have you ever been in love?"

It was such a non-sequitur, after he'd been preparing to talk about trauma, that he needed a second to find a response. One which wasn't too damning. Coward that he was, he settled on "yeah."

Fortunately, Gaby didn't seem to divine his feelings. Instead she stared down and flexed her bare toes. The red lacquer was starting to chip. He'd offer to redo them tomorrow. They wouldn't even have to leave the room. Three bottles of polish were tucked into his shaving kit now; a couple that she'd forgotten in his hotel rooms, one that he'd just bought on impulse, thinking she would like the colour.

When Gaby offered no further elaboration on her question, his curiosity proved irresistible.

"Did Illya say—?"

"Yes," she cut in, as if she couldn't bear to hear the words again.

Napoleon's stomach did a lurching roll. Well, good for Peril, he tried to convince himself. But then he realized that Gaby was _here_ , not downstairs with the person who'd just confessed his love, which didn't seem like a logical progression of the evening if she'd said it back.

As Napoleon frantically tried to figure out how he felt about that, Gaby was already slipping under the covers, clearly exhausted and not prepared to deal with Illya's unique brand of sudden romantic overture which, even at the best of times, tended to make her skittish. Surprised, Napoleon watched her nestle into the blankets, turning away from him with a sigh as sleep began to catch up with her. They had, of course, done this before, but her visits rarely ended in sleepovers since she and Illya had become whatever they now were to each other. Napoleon had missed this. Missed her.

In the morning, extricating himself from Gaby's hold without waking her took a minute of effort, but he eventually got to the door and discovered the source of the insistent knocking in the form of Illya, some combination of annoyance and concern drawing lines on his forehead. He asked what had taken so long. Napoleon opened his mouth, stopped to think, then said he'd been in the bathroom.

"Is she—?" Illya asked, eyes flicking to the closed bedroom door.

"Yeah." Though Napoleon doubted this was news. If Illya genuinely hadn't known she was with him, he would've been down much sooner and been considerably less calm.

Illya's chest rose, as if preparing for a speech. But then he deflated with a pricked "ah."

Unable to witness Illya's hurt, Napoleon began to reassure him that she'd come around, that they'd patch things up. But Illya, if anything, looked even worse.

"She told you."

"Oh. Well, I mean, not in so many words..." When Illya's eyes sharpened, Napoleon gave up the bluff. "But yeah, pretty much."

For a few seconds, Illya appeared torn between punching him or bursting into tears. It was a tense moment. But he ended up sagging into the nearest chair, mumbling that he hadn't _meant_ to say it but he'd just been so scared and he was so glad to have her back and it just came out.

"God," Napoleon murmured, awestruck and confused and faintly longing, "you really do love her, don't you?"

Illya bristled, as if Napoleon had insulted him. "What do you know of love?" he scoffed. "When was the last time you spent a night with someone you actually care about?"

 _Last night_ , Napoleon thought, clenching his jaw so he wouldn't spit the words at Illya. Hating the man as he hadn't in months. But he couldn't say that, so he swallowed past whatever was clawing at the inside of his throat, conjured up a smile, and made some pointed jibe about Illya having not done great in that department either last night. An effective way to bring the conversation to a close.

Later, when Gaby was polishing off their breakfast in bed, an indulgence which Napoleon couldn't resist offering her, he asked what she was doing here.

Gaby glanced at him from the corner of her eye, a grape arrested halfway to her mouth.

"Eating breakfast," she muttered, clearly knowing what he was getting at but not wanting any part of it. "I just—Illya..." but she found no end to the sentence.

"He really does love you. God almighty, if he—"

"Don't," she bit out, probably aiming for imperious but landing on something closer to desperate. "Don't. I just can't right now. Not with you."

Irritation shot through Napoleon, mixed with hurt. Not with _him?_

"What, Gaby? Don't what?" he said, certain that he was asking to get his heart broken, one way or another, but too in love with her for any sense. "What do you need from me?"

She stared at him, wild-eyed, and then he no longer had to guess what she must have been like at six-going-on-seven, terrified and alone, because at that moment she was _there_ again. Maybe she'd never really gotten far away.

"Just don't. I'm figuring it out with Illya, but we're both working through things and sometimes it's just so messy. So I need you to not be that. To be just...simple. Nothing complicated."

Napoleon's mouth suddenly tasted of ash. He swallowed. It didn't go away.

"You can't keep using me just to run away from him."

She blinked, face twisting with confusion, seemingly taken aback that he'd challenged her. Perhaps Illya was right; he'd been spoiling her too much.

"I wasn't," she said testily. Under his dubious gaze, she wavered, then plucked herself up with a sort of brittle defiance to add, "It wasn't _just_ that."

And Napoleon almost laughed then, because he was still such a _stupid_ wreck, still felt more for her than he'd ever wanted to or thought himself capable of, that he still wanted to beg her for elaboration on that ' _just_.'

But instead he just pinched his brows and screwed his eyes shut to have a reprieve from her. "Look, Gabs, you want him, right?"

She took a breath to argue. But then he heard her pause.

"I—Yeah, actually. I do," she whispered. When he looked over, he found her face shifting, as if she'd just discovered the truth of this in admitting it, flickering with a hesitant, glorious little smile. Napoleon closed his eyes again, his chest caving in, wanting, wanting, _wanting_.

"Then please," he begged her, nearly mad with desperation, needing the world to stop hurting. "You have to tell _him_ that. Talk to him. You can't keep coming to me like this."

It was done, Napoleon thought after she'd left to find Illya. He had pulled the plug, sent her on her way. As he prepared to find the nearest place that served alcohol, the first person who would have him, and get good and truly fucked in more ways than one, he told himself it was for the best.

He'd always been terrible at lying to himself.

 

**_lisbon_ **

Surprisingly, Lisbon was a decent mission for Napoleon. Thanks to their covers, he barely saw his partners, which only helped his sanity. They were all staying in the same hotel, but Gaby hadn't come for a visit. Not once. Which Napoleon kept telling himself he was fine with. After all, he'd been the one to put his foot down.

The thought of sitting alone in his hotel room, trying and failing not to imagine his partners together, was unbearable, so he dived back into the nightlife, attempting to remind himself that this was what he did. This was what he was. Or at least it had been, before them. Perhaps he was drinking too much, bringing too many strangers back to the hotel, but he had to do _something_ to stay away from them. Anything.

Once the mission was finished, Napoleon was pushing out the door for another night on the town, only to nearly collide with Illya, whose hand was raised to knock. They both jolted in surprise, then Illya scowled. After a moment, Illya mumbled an invitation to join him and Gaby in her room for a drink, adding a shrug as if needing to make his complete indifference to Napoleon's answer unmistakable. Their post-mission drinks were still a tradition, which Napoleon always looked forward to. His partners were at their best when riding the high of success, Illya grinning and goofy, Gaby bright and bold. And oh, what a tempting image it was.

But part of moving on, he told himself, was actually doing things on his own. So he made an excuse, clapped Illya on the shoulder, and tried to brush past him.

Illya didn't budge, face contracting in an uncomprehending squint. "What do you mean, you have plans?"

"What, you need that in Russian?" It was a cheap shot, one Napoleon hated himself for when Illya winced self-consciously. "Like I said, I'm out for the night. You kids have fun, though."

"But," Illya stammered, his frown deepening, "but we always..."

"Hey, putting up boundaries, right?" Napoleon retorted. He didn't know when it had become such a strange idea, him having his own plans, but Illya's confusion just irritated him. After all, it wasn't like they were...well, nothing was anything with Illya, and Gaby had shut down any _something_ that Napoleon, in his most naïve moments, might have hoped for. So Illya had no right to stare down at him with what increasingly looked like disappointment.

He slipped past a stunned Illya, then cruised for company for a few hours before giving up, telling himself that it was some fluke but knowing that his heart hadn't been in it.

The next morning's invitation to a team breakfast from Illya was a surprise, but one that Napoleon accepted. Breakfast was safer. No alcohol, the setting too public for any real intimacy. So he wandered down the block, eyes finding Gaby in the café before he'd even consciously decided to look for her.

"Illya will be here soon,” Gaby explained when he sat down. “How was your night?”

"Oh, it was great," Napoleon lied through a smile. "Just what I needed, a night on the town."

Gaby's face twisted into some strange expression which disappeared before he could place it. Then she, too, smiled, saccharine sweet. He'd never seen her smile like that. It didn't look quite right on her.

"That must have been nice."

"It was," he said, scrambling a little, unaccustomed to lying to her like this but managing to inject his voice with satisfaction. "How about you two? Have fun?"

Another flash of emotion clouded her face before vanishing. Then she started scrutinizing her fingernails, picking at a chipping bit of polish. "It was okay. Not as exciting as your night, I'm sure. You should have..." she trailed off, brown eyes finding his again, some of the artifice stripped from her expression to reveal something that Napoleon couldn't face head-on.

"Well, that's good, isn't it?” he interjected. “Just what you wanted. A simple night in. Nothing _complicated_."

This, too, was a cheap shot. Reminding her of the distance that she'd begged him for in Switzerland. But he needed the deflection, and very much didn't need more disapproval.

Gaby huffed, a brusque little sound which seemed to push itself from her chest without her consent. She looked out at the street.

"Right," she said, clipped. "Yeah."

Then suddenly he was confronted again with that sugary smile, which still didn't sit right on her face.

"It was good," she continued in a tone as overripe as the smile, "having some time to ourselves. Just the two of us. Alone."

"That sounds lovely," Napoleon said agreeably. "Maybe I should leave you two alone more often."

Gaby's mouth contorted, like somehow his encouragement was not the response she’d been seeking. But she seemed to shake herself, rallying with casual conversation about the weather which held until Illya joined them a minute later. Napoleon, too, tried to shake off the nagging feeling that whatever had just transpired was the least honest conversation he'd ever had with Gaby. Including all of that time she'd played him as a double agent. Tried to tell himself that he already had Illya's disapproval, so hers shouldn't have made any difference. He wasn't entirely successful.

 

**_brussels_ **

The Belgium mission was chaos, all three of them working such long days that Napoleon was too exhausted to do much apart from sleep in his off hours, let alone go out. The one upside was that Gaby was spending time with him again; flitting between his bed and Illya's depending on whose sleep schedule aligned with hers on any given day. He probably should have sent her back to Illya, made another effort to put up boundaries, but he let her stay, knowing that they were both using each other a little but enjoying the warmth of her presence too much to care.

Perhaps that was why, about two weeks in, Illya invited him over to his hotel room, just before they were about to leave for the ballet. From the amused lilt in Illya's voice, Napoleon should have been more wary. But he'd slept terribly the night before, something which he was trying very hard not to attribute to Gaby's absence, so he wasn't at his sharpest.

"Just in time," Illya said, ushering him into the room. "Gaby is getting ready. I need to see Waverly before we leave. You will check her tracker, yes?"

"Uh, excuse me?" Napoleon asked, squinting at Illya and trying to catch up to what he _thought_ Illya just told him to do, but what his tired brain wasn't quite latching onto. "Isn't it your tracker?"

"Yes, but this is what I believe you call 'payback'. For Rome," Illya retorted with a knowing grin. "Back in a few minutes."

In an odd trance, Napoleon sat on the couch after Illya left, feeling rather like a teenager picking up his prom date. As he waited, he gave himself a pep talk. The tracker would be on her thigh again, but so what? It was just a bit of skin, nothing he hadn't seen a hundred times over. Hell, he'd seen more of Gaby in that damned bikini.

All of his preparation flew out the window when the bedroom door opened and Gaby was _there_ , wine-red evening gown hugging her every curve, hair pulled into a chignon which had Napoleon's gaze following the line of her neck. Returning to her face, he found her watching him, eyes traveling down his body in a quick sweep. He looked down to see what could have possibly drawn her attention. The body he found was the same old Napoleon; it just happened to be clad in a tuxedo. Maybe she was eyeing his pocket square. It was a little crooked.

After straightening the rebellious cloth, he forced himself to walk over to her, watching as she tugged her dress up a little, her rouged lips curling in a grimace.

"You don't have to stare at me," she huffed, mistaking his awestruck gaze for judgement. "I _told_ Illya it was too much." Still fussing with the dress, she looked down at herself, scowling further.

"No, you look nice, Gabs," he murmured before he could stop himself.

She froze, eyes flicking up to him from under her lashes, expression slipping to something questioning, a little guarded. "What? That's not...you don't have to say—" Then she scoffed, glancing away, seeming to war with herself over whether to take the praise as genuine or not. When she finally looked at him, there was a sardonic twist to her mouth. "Are you going to check the tracker? Or are we going to just stand around staring at each other?"

Napoleon realized that his response, though sincere, had been half instinct, something learned from so many women fishing for a compliment. Gaby's distress, however, was entirely uncultivated. And now, to cover up her vulnerability, she had turned the whole thing the wrong way around before Napoleon could correct the misunderstanding.

“Well?” Gaby prompted again, arching an eyebrow, fabric rustling as she shifted the skirt of her dress. Feeling like a mouse between the deceptively soft paws of a cat, Napoleon swallowed. Then he looked down.

He didn't know how he'd missed that her dress had a slit. Possibly because he'd been trying not to stare too hard at any of her. And not just a slit, a long, _long_ slit, one which she'd flicked open to expose a thin slice of skin, pale against the dark red silk. And at the very top of that slit, vertiginously high up her leg, the tracker's garter was peeking out.

Since this appeared to be the extent of Gaby's accommodations, Napoleon dropped to his knees, reaching out with hands that suddenly felt overlarge and clumsy. Without touching her skin, he managed to tug the garter around until the tracker emerged, red light glaring at him as he popped open the case. It seemed to take forever, squinting at the tiny wires, his forehead all but pressed against her hip while he tried to ignore the very slight scent of her skin; not her perfume, which he knew and was accustomed to ignoring, but something soft and warm and _her_.

Finally, the light turned green. Napoleon closed his eyes and released a relieved sigh. When he looked again, a trail of goosebumps had risen on Gaby's leg, just in front of his face. Must have been the chill of his breath.

"I swear, Peril made this thing extra fiddly on purpose," he quipped as he reached for the garter again, apologizing when his hand slipped and his fingers briefly skated across the soft skin of Gaby's upper thigh.

"Y—yeah."

Napoleon paused. The hitch in Gaby's voice was slight, something he could have overlooked. Yet there was something odd, strained about her tone, something that had him craning his neck to look up as he asked whether she was okay. But when he moved, his hand inadvertently brushed along her leg again.

Gaby sucked in a sudden breath, her nostrils flaring as her eyes snapped shut. She swayed on her feet ever so subtly, as if chasing after the ghost of his touch.

Wait.

Was she...?

No. It couldn't be.

Or…?

"So, is she _all turned on_ now, Cowboy?"

At the snick of the door and Illya's teasing voice, Napoleon nearly fell on his ass as he leapt away from Gaby. Illya gave him a strange look, then turned to her. Napoleon didn't see her response to this scrutiny, because he was circling away from her, dragging a hand through his hair while he frantically attempted to scramble all of the parts of his brain which were _shrieking_.

He got out some response to the quip, not his best effort but it seemed to placate Illya, who turned back to Gaby and told her she looked lovely.

"I _know_ ," she snapped, making Illya frown in Napoleon's peripheral vision. He heard her take a breath. "I mean, um, sorry. Thank you. We need to leave," she added, all business. "Now."

By the time Napoleon dared to look, she had already disappeared through the door, Illya shooting him a confused look before following her out.

 _No, it couldn't be,_ he told himself again. There was no way. She'd made perfectly clear in Bern what she did and did not want from him. So obviously, he was in deeper than he thought, his infatuation messing with his ability to read her. A reminder, painful but needed, that he had to make a better effort to get over her. Had to put even more distance between them, so this wouldn't happen again.

 

**_jakarta_ **

Things began well in Indonesia. Napoleon was sharing a flat with Illya again, the two of them comfortably chatting over breakfast, playing chess in the evenings. He hadn't even been aware of how unsatisfying his one-night stands had become until Peril, who never ceased to be startlingly funny at the strangest moments, was recounting some anecdote from his school days that had Napoleon doubled over in laughter. He'd take that over anonymous sex almost any night.

Even when she was free, Gaby didn't come around much. Napoleon had only seen her once, and when he'd wandered into the kitchen, shrugging on his shirt and telling Illya off for using up the hot water, Gaby had startled, gaping at him for a second before she all but fled. Though he didn't understand her sudden change in behaviour, he tried to remind himself that whatever the reason, it was probably for the best.

When one week stretched into two, approaching three, he started to feel guilty. After all, they must have been missing each other. So a few days later, knowing that Gaby had the night off, he declared his intention to go out, managing to inject his voice with enough enthusiasm that Illya just frowned, but wished him well. As Napoleon slipped on his shoes, he could hear Peril already on the phone with Gaby. Good.

Napoleon did better than he'd expected, finding some pleasant company and spending the night. That aching hollowness lingered behind his sternum, but he pushed past it, determined not to let _them_ spoil his well-earned debauchery.

The sun was shyly tiptoeing over the horizon when Napoleon returned to the apartment, the hour early enough that he was uncertain whether Illya would be awake, especially if he and Gaby had been, well, Napoleon didn't let himself finish that thought. He crept barefoot towards the kitchen but froze at the threshold.

Gaby. Sitting at the kitchen table, one foot up on her chair, an arm draped across her bent knee, the white cotton of Illya's shirt a luminous halo around her body, lit by the sun which peeked through the slatted blinds. Her hair was in a careless twist, some stray strands meandering the length of her neck in pale tendrils of fire.

Napoleon felt his head swimming. Belatedly, he took a breath. Gaby glanced up, jolting slightly.

"Hey," he murmured, wincing, wondering whether he could have found a more inane greeting if he'd tried. "Good night?"

At his words, a near smile softened her face for one glorious second, but then it slid away as her gaze dropped to linger somewhere around his neck for an uncomfortably long moment. Her mouth thinned into a line.

"Not as good as yours, it seems," she said, all acid, flicking her eyebrows upwards in a mocking salute while she turned to take a sip of coffee. When she'd finished, she refused to look back at him.

"It was...fine." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything is great. Fantastic."

"Okay?" He paused, puzzled by her barely concealed hostility. "Look, Gaby, I didn't—"

"You very clearly _did_ ," she cut in, eyes narrowing dangerously. "All night."

Napoleon blinked. The occasional rebuke about his flings was something he'd learned to tolerate from Illya, but Gaby had never shown any particular opinion before now, let alone such scorn.

"Yeah, I had sex last night," he snarked, chafing at her derision, as he flopped into the chair across from her. "Guilty as charged."

Gaby stared at him again, her gaze flicking downwards for another long look at his neck. Her expression soured even more.

"What, is my tie crooked? Is that what's offending you so much?" He reached up to tug at the silk which he'd blindly knotted in the darkness of another hotel room. "Do I meet your approval now?"

He hated that some part of him, deep down, still wanted her to say yes. Hated that her disapproval had gotten to him in a way that Illya's more benign comments never quite managed.

Instead of answering, Gaby just glared, cheeks flushing, eyes shining with what he took for anger. Then, without another word, she leapt up, slamming her knee on the table in haste, which prompted a choked curse, and practically ran to Illya's room.

Seething, he pilfered her abandoned coffee, wondering how she could possibly have the gall to be so pissed off at him when he had only gone out for her sake; to give her some alone time with Illya. When the coffee was gone, he stomped into the bathroom, uncaring whether he woke the whole building, and paused before the mirror.

There was a scarlet smudge on the collar of his shirt. Faint, but unmistakable. Shedding yesterday's clothes, Napoleon rolled his eyes. If she got so offended by a bit of lipstick, it was probably a good thing that Waverly hadn't been pairing them together recently. He'd never taken her for prudish, but apparently she could be when it suited her.

"You ran into Gaby," was Illya's greeting when he returned to the kitchen. She was nowhere in sight; must have fled while he was in the shower.

"Oh, she told you?" Napoleon retorted, striding towards the cupboard as he decided that he needed far more coffee before attempting to deal with Illya.

"No, but doesn't take a genius to figure this out."

"No shit, Sherlock." Napoleon grabbed a mug before closing the cupboard with much more force than he'd intended, jamming his finger in the door. "Mother _fucker_. God fucking _dammit_." He swung his smarting hand around, knowing that it wouldn't really help but needing to do something with it, slamming the meat of his other palm against the counter as he screwed his eyes shut and panted.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd wanted to _scream_ so badly.

"You know," Illya began conversationally, ignoring the outburst apart from a disapproving raise of his eyebrow, "I knew that you ran into each other because she was...very upset."

"That makes two of us," Napoleon growled before forcing himself to take a deep breath. And another. "Look, Peril, it's been a complete shitshow of a morning, and you...Could you wait until I've had one more coffee before you tell me things I already know?"

"No, no, you don't understand. What I mean is that Gaby does not anger easily. Neither do you. You bicker, yes, but not real anger. But you are also sore spot for each other. She gets beneath your skin."

"Under," Napoleon said unthinkingly.

"Stop correcting, it's rude," Illya shot back. "Prepositions are difficult. Fine, she gets under your skin, but you get under hers too. More than anyone else. Fight with me?" Illya puffed out a breath. "She sulks for a while. Probably goes running to you and you do her nails. But when she fights with you? Real fight, like this? She's...different."

Napoleon sighed, uncertain why Illya was telling him any of this but hoping it would be easiest to just let him finish. "Different how?"

“Very, very angry. Furious.” Illya glanced away, as if worried that Gaby could somehow overhear him, even though she was long gone. “And if she’s furious at _you_ , she is furious at me too. For rest of day, or however long this lasts, all I will hear about is how infuriating you are, so thank you for this,” he added tartly.

“For _the_ rest of _the_ day,” Napoleon said smugly. Fighting with Illya these days was just too easy; they both knew how to get the maximum rise out of each other. Sure enough, Illya hissed like an angry goose.

“I can see why she’s so mad at you. How is my English for this? You are a son of a bitch,” Illya recited, each word beautifully, carefully enunciated, then began stalking out of the kitchen. “Poshyol na hui, govnyuk!”

“Yeah, fuck you too, asshole!”

Napoleon stole Illya's abandoned coffee, too.

 

**_los angeles_ **

A few hours outside Los Angeles, on the way to meet some contact in a godforsaken little armpit of a desert town, Napoleon pondered bitterly that this had to be a new low for him. For the three of them. Something was just _broken_ among the team, every absent comment made with good intent twisted into something to take offense at, every effort to tug things back into shape only making it all unravel that much faster.

He knew what had gone wrong with Illya, but couldn't figure out how to fix it. With Gaby, he didn't even know. He wasn't sure which was worse.

They all simmered and snapped until Gaby made good on an earlier threat to pull over, grinding to a halt on the side of the highway. She stalked a short distance into the brush and when Illya dared to approach, scared him off with a venomous glare. Napoleon only managed two steps towards her before beating his own retreat.

Propping himself against the side of the car, Napoleon watched Illya cup his hands to shield against the shrieking wind while he lit a cigarette, an indulgence which he only seemed to permit himself when truly at the end of his rope. Sighing, Napoleon dragged a hand over his face and when he opened his eyes again was faintly disappointed to still see Gaby fuming and stomping around, as Illya sucked in a lungful of smoke before expelling it in a terse huff. Neither man said a word.

Eventually, Gaby returned. She fixed Napoleon, leaning against the driver's door, with a look of such ire that he immediately jumped aside. As a plume of dust rose in the rearview mirror, she unclawed her hand from the gearshift and cranked up the radio, loud enough to make her meaning inescapable. The remainder of both car rides, to the town and back to Los Angeles, were spent in barbed silence.

For a few days, Napoleon wondered if this was the beginning of the end.

And when it was his turn to get captured, in his darkest moments he wondered whether they would even come for him.

Gaby found him first, picking the lock of his handcuffs while Illya guarded the door. As Napoleon, head aching from an earlier collision of boot to skull, wrestled with consciousness, he nearly wept when Gaby's gentle hands wrapped around the sides of his face, surrounding him with her presence. She brushed at the matted blood in his hair, apologizing when he winced, making him insist that it looked worse than it was. He had no clue whether that was true, but he repeated the reassurance until some of the worry left her expression.

In a breathless murmur, almost tripping over herself, Gaby closed her eyes, hands faintly trembling against his jaw, called him a fucking idiot, then sighed just how _glad_ she was that he was okay.

They both startled at the words. Gaby, seeming to have surprised herself, like she'd only meant to think it. Napoleon, because he genuinely couldn't remember the last time that anyone had told him they cared whether he lived or died.

But then Illya yelled that it was time to go, _now_ , and they all had bigger concerns.

He ended up in their hotel room. They must have decided on this while he was getting prodded by the doctor, and he'd been too fatigued to notice where they were taking him until Peril was nudging him towards a bed which was not his own. For all of his exterior gruffness, Illya was determinedly playing mother hen, making him lie down then scurrying off to get food, returning a few minutes later with a grease-darkened paper bag in which Napoleon discovered burgers and fries. Somehow, it was exactly what he needed.

After they ate, Illya sitting on the other side of the bed and chiding him for making them worry, but for once abstaining from disdainful comments about American food, a silence settled between them. From the other room, Napoleon could hear Gaby's voice, pitched low but cutting, in that way she got when furious but attempting to restrain herself. Probably on that phone with Waverly. He realized that despite everything that had happened, right now, feeling more vulnerable than he had in a long time, he missed her rather terribly.

"How do you feel?" Illya asked softly, interrupting his thoughts. "Not too much pain?"

"I'm alright." When he gazed over, Illya's expression, too, was soft. Napoleon tried to place where he'd seen that little smile before, and eventually realized that it was the look that he thought of as Illya's 'Gaby' face. Being on the receiving end of it was new. It made a warm feeling well up in his chest.

"Thanks for having my back, Peril."

"Of course," Illya said. "Thank you for not dying."

Both of them snorted at Illya's dry joke. But then Illya shifted on the bed, pausing before speaking again.

"You scared her, today." All humour was now gone from his voice, replaced with a gravity which had Napoleon looking over at him again. "A lot."

"It wasn't—C'mon, Peril," Napoleon deflected with a shrug, uncomfortable. "First thing she said to me was 'you are a goddamn fucking idiot'. She's fine. She's pissed at me, if anything."

Illya shook his head. "Do you remember in Monaco, at the end of the mission? When I was almost shot? I think she said exact same thing to me then."

"No, that time it was 'you are such a fucking moron,' I think."

"Ah, yes, you're right." Illya bit his lip. "I think she...she doesn't let herself be scared. Makes her feel weak. So she gets angry instead."

Napoleon could feel Illya's gaze on the side of his face. But he couldn't return it.

"She was very angry today, Cowboy," Illya said, pointed. "And this makes me angry. So, do not do this again, yes?"

"No guarantees, Peril, but I'll try." Suddenly exhausted, Napoleon slumped back against the pillows, overbalancing a little and leaning into Illya's shoulder. But instead of telling him to move, Illya just murmured a soft goodnight, which Napoleon managed to return before sleep overtook him.

It was dark outside when Napoleon awoke. That was new. He was still tired beyond measure, but now felt comforted and safe. After a moment of bleary pondering, he realized why.

Illya was still there, fast asleep, their shoulders still touching, grounding him with this point of solid heat. But far more surprising was the warmth at his left, the weight on his chest. Gaby must have snuck in while he was asleep. And now she was curled into his body, her head over his heart, one hand locked in a deathgrip around his shirt as if terrified that he'd vanish.

Napoleon lay awake for what felt like hours, that empty space behind his sternum suddenly full to the bursting from being surrounded by them. And now that he'd gotten a taste of this, he didn't know how he could possibly let it go, but knew with absolute certainty that he would have no choice. And then he would be on the outside again.

 

* * *

 

_hold me, you._

_firmly, because all I've known how to_

_do so far is leave_

 

* * *

 

 

**_beaulieu-sur-mer_ **

In the summer heat of the French Riviera, they tried to get back to normal. Though none of them spoke of it, his capture in Los Angeles had shaken them. Nothing was quite the same as before, but Napoleon tried, reaching a careful détente with Gaby, falling back into simple camaraderie with Illya. And he stood on the sidelines while those two reconnected.

The ache in Napoleon's chest was back, deeper and emptier than ever. It never really left anymore, just carved a space behind his ribs and slowly hollowed him out.

Despite that, some days he almost convinced himself that he could keep going. That he could just exist in perpetual, quiet longing for them, and it would be enough.

Some days were agony, torture to be around them and sense every millimetre of the gulf between him and them, which he couldn't see any way to bridge.

Most days he just battled the rising awareness that he couldn't keep doing this. That he had to move on for real, no more half measures. At some point soon, he would need to pull these thorns from his side, even if he risked bleeding to death once they were no longer filling the empty spaces within him.

One day, he just looks at them, letting himself admire the sunlight gilding Illya's hair, Gaby's bare arms. Watching as Illya curls down to press the softest of kisses to her forehead, Gaby's face illuminating with a beatific smile at this simple contact. They're a little too far away for Napoleon to hear, but he sees Gaby's lips form the shape of three words, ones which she'd fled not too long ago. He wonders if it's the first time she's said them to Illya.

Then he realizes that he would give almost _anything_ to know, suddenly reeling like he's been socked in the gut, scarcely able to breath from how much he wants, wants, _wants_.

He calls Waverly later that day. It's time.

"My word, you really do want out, don't you?" Waverly says gravely, glancing around the café that Napoleon had snuck out to. "Not more money, more seniority, more time off? Nothing?" Then his gaze turns perceptive, reminding Napoleon that his boss is not just a paper-pusher. He's a spy. And, if rumours were to be believed, a damned good one. "Are you certain this is just restlessness? Or is the problem perhaps something more...personal?"

"No, sir."

"It's just that," Waverly continues, ignoring the denial, "I don't think you're so naïve as to be unaware of the friction that's been happening lately amongst your team, nor foolish enough to think that it has gone unnoticed by others. Is there anything in particular that's causing tension? Something I can speak to your partners about?"

"Nothing I can think of, sir."

"Right." Waverly pauses for a sip of coffee. "See, the thing is, I don't believe you in the slightest. So I'm just going to be blunt and ask which one of them it is. And believe me, I really don't care which."

"Which one of them is what, sir?" Napoleon asks blandly.

Waverly shakes his head. "Playing dumb has never been your game, Solo. And it's rather an insult to my intelligence, too. But very well, I'll see what can be done."

"Thank you, sir, I really—"

"However," Waverly interrupts, "I shall have to speak to the C.I.A. about all of this. They didn't just set you loose. They loaned you out. So they may have an opinion on what happens should you decline our gracious hospitality. These interagency dealings are always dreadfully messy and political, so I'm not entirely certain how long this will take, but I'll start the process. Should have something to tell you by the end of the next mission."

Internally, Napoleon swears. He hadn't expected such a delay. But externally, he smiles. If there's one thing he's good at, apart from robbing people blind, it's always finding a smile.

Now, at least, the end is in sight.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

_challenge me, because all I've known_

_so far is how to make excuses._

 

* * *

 

 

**_london_ **

Much, much later, long after that day in Los Angeles when Gaby saved Napoleon and called him an idiot, she calls him an idiot again.

Her canny eyes peek down at him, her chin tucked in the very crook of her elbow, one hand flopping carelessly against Illya's shoulder where he lies next to them, sunwarm and immovable.

She's right, though. And Napoleon tells her so, watching her sink every so slightly from his view while his chest empties itself of words. A brief sunset. He takes a breath, and her smile dawns before him again; smothered against her own skin, but still radiance itself.

She really is right. He spent far too long being an idiot.

But in his defense...

So did she.

 

**_paris_ **

But before they got there, they had so much to do. Starting in France. If Paris was Waverly's idea of a joke, Napoleon wasn't laughing. His boss didn't yet have an answer to his request, but had somehow managed, at the worst time imaginable, to have him playing married with Gaby.

And yet, even as they were settling into their flat, some stubborn part of Napoleon was still plotting ways to avoid her as much as possible. They'd have to see each other on duty, of course, but maybe if he went out a lot in his off hours, he could at least make an effort at putting up boundaries.

But then he found her giving him a wary look like she was just waiting for something to go wrong, and he suspected that trying to avoid someone he would be sharing a bed with was probably a lost cause.

And besides, he realized with a knot in his throat, this was his last mission with them. The final curtain. So he sighed, and gave himself permission. Not to push Gaby's boundaries, but to just stop forcing a wedge between them. To let himself love her for this short time, however much she wanted of him. He knew it would only make leaving more difficult, but he knew he'd regret it more if he pushed her away.

So he smiled at her, a real smile, and made a self-deprecating joke, praying with everything he had that she'd let him back in. When she rolled her eyes and groaned about how _awful_ his sense of humour was, biting her lip as her mouth quivered with amusement, Napoleon could have wept from relief.

The marriage may have been fake, but Gaby's hands curling around his arm as they walked along the rue de la Huchette, the touch of her lips to his cheek, the sleepy, grumbly noises she made pressed against him in bed, these things were exquisitely, heart-stoppingly real. At his most optimistic, he'd been expecting cautious friendship from her, but after a few days of scrutiny, she surprised him by how much she, too, seemed to fall into the fantasy. Soon she wasn't just taking his arm in public, she was tucking into his side as they watched TV together, giving him a kiss on the cheek when he brought her breakfast in bed.

A week after they arrived, she was propping her feet in his lap and tossing over the little glass bottle. He hadn't even realized how much he'd missed painting her nails, how much he'd missed _her_ , until she was back, the Gaby who was bright and clever and sarcastic, who called him on his bullshit, who always stole his food and never shared the blankets.

He didn't know why she was acting like this, but he was too scared that she'd go running if he asked, so he just took whatever she offered, and she did the same of him. Somewhere in his head, he could hear Peril scolding him. But fortunately, Illya wasn't around to do the scolding himself. He was on surveillance, a flash of blond hair above the crowd, a tall figure in the shadows. Always watching, never within reach.

Eventually, Illya re-emerged, received at the door by Gaby with a sweet kiss and an "I missed you", murmured in the undertone of an embarrassing secret. In response, Illya dipped down to kiss her forehead, provoking a rosy flush on Gaby's cheeks and a pleased smile which she tried and failed to wrestle into a scowl. When Illya grinned at her, she whacked him with the back of her hand and rolled her eyes, but she was still losing the battle against that smile. Those two were impossibly sweet. Both of them.

Peril seemed happy as they got down to the purpose of his visit, troubleshooting the latest tracker design, a recent collaboration between the men. They could've kept using their own, separate trackers; both of them knew that. But for Napoleon, it was an easy excuse to spend time with Illya, and the project was producing good results, so Illya wasn't complaining either.

Electronics like this weren't Gaby's thing, Napoleon now knew. She had a competent grasp of the subject, but preferred the straightforwardness of mechanics. So she mostly hovered around their sessions, this time perching in the chair to Napoleon's left as Illya sat on his other side and laid the work on the kitchen table, explaining the latest problem with the tiny wires shorting. As Napoleon squinted down at the tracker, Gaby leaned closer to examine for herself, her shoulder pressing into his. Napoleon stilled briefly, glancing right, but Illya's explanation continued without pause, stopping only to point out to Gaby some change they'd made to the resistors, but making nothing of her proximity to Napoleon.

Chiding himself, Napoleon returned his focus to the work, vowing to ignore Gaby. And soon enough, after she'd made a few suggestions, she grew bored, declaring her intention to go for a walk before asking Napoleon when they were meeting the target that night.

"Seven," he replied distractedly, frowning at a bit of melted wire that Illya had just discovered, the source of the short. "And don't forget, we've got—"

"Breakfast in the morning, I know," she finished, peeling away from his side but remaining seated. "Did you—?"

"Order the flowers? Yeah, while you were in the shower. Tulips, right?"

"You finally remembered," Gaby said, voice so warm with a grin that, even without looking up, Napoleon smiled reflexively. "Okay, back in a bit, don't electrocute yourself while I'm gone," she added as she swayed forward to press a kiss to his cheek. "Ugh. And you need to shave before tonight." Her thumb swiped along the bristly line of his jaw, making him roll his eyes but grunt in acknowledgement.

It was only when she wandered off, her bare feet slapping on the tile, humming a happy melody to herself, that Napoleon suddenly realized what they had just done and, more importantly, _who_ they had just done it in front of. He froze, awareness of Illya prickling through his skin, torn between looking over or fleeing.

When he worked up enough courage to glance up, Illya's eyes were not turned on him, but in the direction that Gaby had disappeared. A faint line was forming on his forehead.

"She seems happy," Illya said in a tone too casual to pass for casual.

"She's glad to see you," Napoleon replied, proud of himself for the redirect. "After all of this time stuck with boring old me."

He began very carefully doing something to the wires. It was probably something useful. Maybe.

"You two are getting along well now, yes?" Illya asked.

"I mean, she drives me up the wall sometimes, and I definitely do the same to her, but she's good to work with."

"Right," Illya said, with the faint air of a cat deciding which vase it most wanted to knock off the mantle. "She was a bit...flat. Before. Past few months."

"Was she?" Of course Napoleon had noticed, but what had been 'flat' to Illya had, to Napoleon, mostly been varying degrees of hostility.

"You two have been hurting each other."

Napoleon shrugged. "We've had a few disagreements. Things are better for now, though."

"Does this mean you are done hurting her?"

When Napoleon looked over, Illya's expression had the determined set of a man who wouldn't tolerate any evasion in what was said next. He'd made his choice, and it was Gaby. Napoleon couldn't even be truly annoyed at being on the wrong side of this. Mostly, he just admired Illya's stubborn, fierce loyalty, which Napoleon, for a while, had thought he had earned. But apparently Gaby had won.

"Yeah, I'm done hurting her," Napoleon vowed. He may have not been certain what, precisely, he'd been doing that hurt Gaby so much, but it wouldn't matter soon enough. Once Waverly pulled through, he wouldn't be able to hurt her any longer and, more importantly to his selfish heart, the only hurt they could do to him would be their absence.

Illya scrutinized him for a long moment.

"Good," he said with a nod. "Then we can still be friends."

" _Friends_." Napoleon suppressed a bitter sigh. "Yeah."

He just had to get through another week. Just one more week.

 

**_barcelona_ **

Waverly managed to evade him until the beginning of the next mission in Barcelona. But annoying persistence is one of Napoleon's specialties, so he managed to badger his way into a meeting, slipping past a quizzical Illya with a vague comment about having an errand to run.

"Well, Solo, I tried," Waverly said, once they'd gotten past pleasantries.

"You _tried_?"

Without sentiment, Waverly explained that the C.I.A. didn't commute his sentence, they merely transferred it. And during his absence, his bastard of an old handler managed to talk enough shit about him that the Agency wouldn't take him back.

"So, I'm afraid your only choices are staying with us," Waverly continued, having the decency to at least look apologetic, "or serving the remainder of your sentence in prison. Shall I assume that the latter is not a tenable option?"

Napoleon gritted his teeth, because _no_ , that was not a tenable option, and accepted Waverly's welcome back to the team, no need to tell the others, thanks.

(For nothing.)

Firmly back in his metaphorical shackles, which were only _just_ preferable to the literal ones that were his only alternative, Napoleon did the only thing he could. He partied. He drank. He found people who would take him into their beds, offering him a night of reprieve from Illya. One small grace was Gaby's absence; once again, Waverly had her working separately. But that left Napoleon sharing a too-small apartment with an increasingly judgemental Illya, whose comments about his activities were no longer idle but had evolved into pointed, almost hurt barbs about abandoning the team.

If Peril only _knew_ how close he'd been to making that literal.

And the one time that Gaby did come by, she caught Napoleon during a particularly shameful walk of shame, leading to furious glaring and irate asides and at least one slammed door and a lot of shouting from Illya. Since he couldn't explain why he was doing any of this, Napoleon couldn't even defend himself; he just had to stand there and take it and _seethe_ at Illya.

At the rate things were going, Napoleon realized one day, they'd either end up killing each other or fucking. Napoleon couldn't even figure out which he'd rather anymore. Before Illya he'd never fully understood the appeal of hate sex. But now, as Illya leveraged every inch of his height advantage to glare down at him, Napoleon could sense the tension between them as an almost palpable presence; a steel string relentlessly wound tighter and tighter as it shrieked and frayed.

But even though he could sense it coming, Napoleon still wasn't prepared for what happened when they finally snapped.

It had been a bad day. They'd fought in the morning, grated their way through fourteen hours of grueling undercover work, and then their supposedly solid lead had veered into a sudden dead-end, leaving them with nothing to show for two weeks wasted.

Returning home, they trundled out of the car, slamming the doors shut. Neither said a word.

At the front door they had to pause while Napoleon fished for the keys. Illya crowded behind him, breaths coming in hot, irate little hisses and huffs. The urge to nail Illya in the nose with a headbutt writhed up Napoleon's neck. He came dangerously close to giving in.

It took him a moment to find the keys. This was a moment too long for Illya, who released an animal growl of impatience.

Napoleon jammed the key into the lock.

It stuck.

He swore.

When he finally got the lock, Illya ripped the door from his hands and barged past him into the apartment. Stomping in after him, Napoleon stared at his back and fantasized about getting him in a headlock, to exact some payback for their first fight, long ago in West Berlin.

Napoleon turned to lock the door. Behind him, Illya's flung-off shoes hit the wall in two resounding cracks of thunder.

 _Fuck it_ , Napoleon thought. What he actually said, as he reached for the door, was more civil. But only just.

"You're _leaving_?" Illya growled. "Again?"

"What does it _look_ like I'm doing?" Napoleon shot back, his hand shaking with fury around the doorknob. "Yes, I'm leaving. Do you have a problem with—"

Something grabbed his arm and yanked, _hard_ , spinning him around and slamming him against the door. He swore, demanding to know what the _fuck_ was wrong, struggling against Illya's arms pining his chest, kicking out against his shins.

"Get off me, you—"

"Stop! Running! Away!" Illya snarled, lunging close enough that a fleck of spittle landed on Napoleon's cheek. " _Stay._ "

"Fuck you," Napoleon spat right back. After a moment he fought the hold again, but he was in the unusual position of being against an opponent who had both a weight and height advantage, not to mention more hand-to-hand training. He was good and truly pinned, at Illya's mercy.

Easily quelling his struggles, Illya let out another growl. Napoleon stilled. Illya leaned forward another inch, their foreheads almost pressed together, close enough that Napoleon could count each golden lash fringing Illya's blue eyes.

For a second, nothing happened. Then Napoleon realized that he'd been panting, open-mouthed, and forced himself to swallow.

Illya's eyes dived downwards, locking onto his mouth. Then, with scarcely two inches left between them, Illya surged forward again.

The shock of Illya's lips against his own dragged a startled gasp from Napoleon, Illya giving him no chance to recover before deepening the kiss, setting every nerve in Napoleon's body afire. A little infuriated that Illya had gotten the upper hand so quickly, Napoleon jerked his hips forward, using the surprised breath that Illya took as an opportunity to push his tongue past Illya's lips, unrelenting. But Illya responded by tugging on his hair, almost brutally, as he ground against Napoleon's rapidly awakening cock, the move so shockingly blatant that Napoleon broke the kiss.

"What the _fuck?_ " he swore breathlessly.

"You think you're so clever?" Illya panted, craning downwards to nip at his throat. "Sneaking away to meet Waverly? Thought you could run away from us?"

"How did you—? That wasn't what I wa—"

"Stop lying," Illya snarled. "You talk too much. Just _shut up_." He pulled away from Napoleon neck only long enough to journey back to his lips, Napoleon anticipating this kiss and meeting him halfway, their teeth clacking, Illya driving his head back against the door with the force of the kiss.

The entire encounter was so utterly opposite from what he'd expected of Illya, what he knew of how sweet and gentle Illya was with Gaby, that Napoleon was still reeling, trying to catch up to an Illya who was harsh and demanding and who unceremoniously reached down to grab his ass, thrusting a thigh between Napoleon's legs and encouraging him to grind against it.

Napoleon was so caught up in the moment that he couldn't even identify the sudden, deafening noise which shrieked in his right ear, interrupting his focus from trying to get a hand down Illya's pants. It took him a second of dazed panic before he recognized the sound of the telephone on the wall, the ringer letting out another furious clang as they both whipped around to stare at it.

Illya yanked away as if hit by lightning, leaving Napoleon gasping for air, leaning all of his weight into the door because without Illya pressed against him, he wasn't sure if his legs would hold.

When the phone wailed again, Illya took two strides over and swiped out, clumsily knocking the handset from the cradle and making it fall to the floor with a clack. A voice filtered through from the speaker, too quiet for Napoleon to make out the caller, especially when he could barely hear anything over the sound of his own heart drumming in his ears.

"Allo?" Illya croaked into the receiver once he’d crouched to retrieve it, dragging a hand through his mussed hair. After a second of listening, he blanched, his eyes bulging in panic. "Oh! Ah, hello, Gaby. Um, no, no, it’s fine, I just, ah," Illya swallowed heavily, “I just dropping phone. Dropped the phone. H-how are you?"

Napoleon screwed his eyes shut and swore under his breath. He had no clue what had just happened, but he could already tell, somehow, that they weren't going to figure it out. That Illya would run back to Gaby, and do his best to pretend that nothing was wrong.

If there was one thing that Napoleon was all too used to these days, it was pretending that nothing was wrong. So, it was business as usual.

 

**_johannesburg_ **

Napoleon's predictions proved correct. In the weeks since Barcelona, not a single word had been said about what happened that night. Illya had barely said a single word to him about _anything_. Indeed, the encounter seemed to have shaken Illya so severely that Gaby had easily noticed. But she’d been unable to extract an explanation, leading to another falling-out between them.

And based on Illya's reaction, it would obviously never happen again, so Napoleon just tried not to think about the whole thing.

Nevertheless, he caught himself lapsing into those thoughts as he stared out at the twinkling lights of Johannesburg. Then he sighed, swallowing past the wave of melancholy which suddenly constricted his throat. With a mental reprimand, he turned back to his hotel room, reminding himself that he had better things to do than wallow all night.

Cynthia, the American he'd met at the hotel bar, sauntered over to join him at the window, setting a hand low on his back as she sipped her wine. She was a businesswoman who had probably turned 29 a few times before giving it up recently, an inch taller than Napoleon in her heels, an inch shorter without. Her personality was as brassy as her bottle blonde hair, with that sort of callous honesty which seemed considered a virtue by those who possessed it, but which was really just an excuse to be rude while feeling superior about it. In bald terms, she'd said that she wanted a night of fun, nothing more, which neatly aligned with Napoleon's goals.

In short, one of the better flings he'd had in a while.

Just as she pressed her lips below his ear, her alluring words were interrupted by a knock at the door. Napoleon paused, realized he wasn't expecting anyone, and told her to ignore it. But he only managed to kiss her for a moment before she broke away and asked if he could hear that.

After listening, he did, in fact, hear it. A faint clicking noise coming from the door. It had been so long since the last time, it took him a full second to figure out who would be the only person to first knock at his door and then unapologetically pick the lock. Something lurched in his chest.

He raced across the room, cursing the whole way; Gaby had learned too well.

She finished with the lock just as he skidded to a halt, almost slamming into the door when she pushed it open. Blinking in surprise, Gaby frowned, demanding to know what the hell had gotten into him, a faint trace of liquor on her breath. She was barefoot in her pajamas, one pant leg bunched halfway up her calf, the other too long, so she kept stepping on the hem. She looked tiny. Young.

Without awaiting his response, Gaby began to rant about how insufferable Illya was being, while Napoleon frantically attempted to bustle her out of the room, keep her facing away from the window, anything to stop this from becoming a _thing_. But since this was Gaby, who rebelled at any attempt to get her to do anything, she planted her feet and glared murder at him.

"Who's the kid?"

At Cynthia's bemused, dismissive drawl, Gaby whirled around, reaching for Napoleon's arm as she stumbled over her own feet. Aghast, he watched her expression turn from annoyance to bewilderment. She glanced first at him, then down at herself, her expression falling as she seemed to become suddenly, painfully aware of her own appearance. Then her gaze flicked to Cynthia, taking in the coiffed golden locks, the statuesque build, the cocktail dress that fit her like a second skin.

And then Napoleon wished they could return to bewilderment or even annoyance, because _anything_ would have been better than the sight of Gaby's face crumpling in humiliation. Her cheeks flushed, not the pretty pink of when Illya kissed her, but something red and blotchy.

"Gaby..."

She didn't interrupt him, but when she looked up, the devastation in her expression was enough to leave him speechless.

The slap which followed also had the same effect.

After the door slammed behind Gaby, Napoleon stared blankly, his left cheek stinging. Curiously detached from reality, the last twenty seconds kept looping in his mind, each repetition bringing a fresh wave of nauseated horror at how _royally_ he had just fucked up.

Cynthia began to speak as she gathered her purse and coat, but he was so stunned that he missed the first part, just catching "—don't sleep with married guys. I should've known. And what is she, anyways, twenty? Fucking men, all the same."

The door slammed again, leaving Napoleon alone in that suffocating sort of silence which only seems to exist for the opportunity to dissect every awful, agonizing detail of what had just transpired.

He staggered over to the couch and reached out, bypassing Cynthia's abandoned glass to grab the full bottle of wine.

* * *

An hour later, Napoleon hadn't even gotten truly, blackout drunk, much to his disappointment, before a furious pounding interrupted the silence. He considered pretending to be asleep, or dead, but visions of Illya simply breaking down the door were motivation enough to peel himself off the couch. And the next moment, he was once again being slammed against a door.

"What did you do to her?" Illya growled, shaking him like a terrier dispatching a rat.

"Nothing! Get _off_ me!"

Jolting, as if he'd had just remembered doing the same thing in Barcelona, Illya released him, circling away and making a frustrated noise in his throat. "Well, _something_ happened," Illya said. "And I couldn't get her to tell me."

Napoleon sighed, then began to explain, his eyes drifting towards the ceiling as Illya's gaze grew more dangerous with every word.

"...so Gaby left, and then Cynthia left a minute later," he finished.

Jaw clenched, eyes hard, Illya just stared. Unnerved, Napoleon swallowed. He'd seen Illya in almost every shade of anger, but never with a look of such open betrayal.

"I trusted you," Illya finally said, voice rumbling with hurt. "In Paris, when you two were so close again. I trusted you when you said you would stop hurting her."

"How am I supposed to do that when I don't even know what I'm doing that supposedly keeps hurting her? It's not _fair_." Napoleon winced, hating the childishness of his own voice, but unable to contain the months of confusion and frustration from pouring out. He took a steadying breath. "I'm sorry, but she has no right to break in here without invitation and then be pissed off when I'm not alone. I wish it hadn't happened, but just because she doesn't approve, doesn't mean—"

"Doesn't approve?" Illya interrupted, his brows burrowing downwards in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"C'mon, don't play dumb. I'm sure she's just spent the past hour ranting about how much I get around. You know, I never took her for a prude, but..."

"You think she's upset because of moral objections?" Illya gaped, as if the very thought was completely absurd and not the reality which Napoleon had been living for months.

Napoleon hissed, getting fed up with Illya being deliberately obtuse. "Oh, you have a better explanation? Really? Please, enlighten me, I'm sure it's—"

"She's _jealous!"_

At Illya's bellowed words, everything stopped in Napoleon's brain for half a second.

"Wh—what?" he somehow managed to stammer, reeling like he'd been kicked in the solar plexus. "That can't...She never—"

"No," Illya cut in, "don't you dare, how did you say it? 'Play dumb'. I have just spent past _hour_ watching her heart break! So you do not get to tell me how she feels."

Some part of Napoleon's brain restarted again, and it was screaming. He frantically tried to remember everything that had happened between him and Gaby, wondering if Illya was right, whether he really could have misread her so badly.

"I don't," Napoleon said, each word limping sluggishly out of his mouth. "I don't understand, Peril. I don't...But you two are..." He made some motion of his hand towards Illya.

"Da," Illya grunted, ducking his head.

"So what exactly did you think would happen? Why aren't _you_ jealous? Jesus, Illya, I know that you're working on that, but still, this is a lot different than not getting huffy when she flirts with targets."

"Doesn't," Illya mumbled, now avoiding his gaze completely, "doesn't bother me if it's you. I don't know. I just want her to be happy. And I know what you're going to say. I know…” he swallowed, “I know we need to talk about Barcelona. But you need to try with Gaby first. If you can't fix things with her, then nothing between me and you matters. I won't go behind her back."

"When you say 'try', Peril..."

"I just want her to be happy," Illya repeated. "I don’t know whether it will work, you and her. She and I, we are good together, but this, with you, it doesn't work. Everyone is miserable. So, you will try? See what she wants?”

Still feeling vaguely like this conversation was some sort of surreal dream, Napoleon walked over to stand before Illya, needing the certainty of eye-contact. After a beat, finding nothing but sincerity in Illya’s gaze, Napoleon nodded.

With a shaky breath, Illya swallowed, then dropped his head again, as if taking a moment to readjust his view on the world. An impulse that Napoleon understood all too well, after this conversation.

"Okay," Illya replied, his shoulders dropping slightly, his whole posture losing some fight. "Okay, good. So, no more partying, yes? No more running away? You’ll try to fix things with her?"

"Yeah, I’ll try. And Illya," he called out, hating himself for what he was about to ask, but needing the reassurance, "you're going to think about Barcelona, right? This isn't a brush-off?"

After a terrifyingly silent second, Illya shook his head. Let out that little tsking sound of his which Napoleon had learned meant a negative. "Not a brush-off. I am thinking about it. Very much. Will think some more. Goodnight."

Alone once more, Napoleon stared out the window, his brain buzzing and lurching and feeling halfway to bursting. He sighed. It was all just too much for tonight.

He began to walk towards the bedroom, stopping to look at the bottle of wine, sitting coyly on the coffee table.

Shaking himself, he pushed past it.

 

**_copenhagen_ **

Contrary to the often wild exaggerations about Napoleon's sex life, he'd never been in this position before. Never had the explicit permission of one person to pursue their romantic partner. That alone would've been tricky enough to manage, but Gaby's hurt had become an entity all its own, a smouldering, suffocating presence which drove Napoleon away before he ever managed to get close enough to talk to her.

So he tried to focus on the mission, found himself just as often distracted by desperate plans of how to apologize, did neither well and he knew it.

But then Gaby was curled up on the couch, setting the phone back in the cradle, and though she didn't say anything to him, he'd overheard enough to know that Illya was missing. And though Napoleon may have been confused about almost everything, he knew that to mount a successful rescue, he needed to at least get back on speaking terms with her.

Seeing the way she turned to look at him, all wariness, like that first glare she'd given him oh so long ago in that dingy little chop shop, Napoleon cursed on the inside because he couldn't believe that they'd managed to get everything so wrong. Couldn't believe how much time they'd spent hurting each other.

"Gaby," he murmured, chest contracting when she flinched at his voice. So many phrases floated before him, excuses, logical arguments, all different ways to finagle. But this, he suspected, wasn't the right time to get clever with her.

Knowing how she hated being towered over, he crouched in front of the sofa, ceding the height advantage.

"I'm sorry," he said, keeping his voice soft and sincere, frantically watching every detail of her facial expression as she stiffened and turned to stare at the wall. "I'm sorry for Johannesburg, I'm sorry for so much more before that. And I know you're hurting, and I know that this doesn't fix any of that, but you and I both know we need to work together to get him back. And I..." When he trailed off, she looked back at him. He swallowed. Went all in. "I need my partner back on this. I need _you_ back. Please, Gabs."

She didn't soften, exactly. But some of the coldness left her face. For a long moment, she just looked down at him, imperious. Then she rose, brushing past him, and told him to hurry up; they had to go get Illya.

It wasn't much. But it was _something_.

Once they had Illya, exhausted and sore but uninjured, back at Gaby's apartment, Napoleon stood at the foot of the bed he'd helped get Illya into, as Gaby fussed and scolded in that brittle, acerbic way she gets when she's breathlessly scared but doesn't know how to say that. Feeling like an intruder on their moment, he excused himself to make dinner, cobbling together sandwiches and wondering how much longer it would be until Gaby kicked him out.

Illya greeted him with a weary smile as he returned with the sandwiches. He'd coaxed Gaby into lying next to him, her eyes following Napoleon warily while he crossed the room.

"Don't leave," Illya said after he'd passed over their food. He patted the bed. "Sit. Eat." When Gaby shot him a questioning look, Illya picked up one of her hands in both of his. "I know," he murmured, "I know you two are struggling. But has been a very long day and I just....just let him stay? For me?"

If anyone else had asked, Napoleon was certain that Gaby would have refused. Even with it being Illya, he was still a little surprised when she acquiesced. But she nodded, giving Napoleon something that wasn't a smile, but was the closest thing to a smile that she'd shown him recently, and curled into Illya's shoulder with a soft sigh.

They all ate in contented silence, Illya periodically shifting to lean against Napoleon's shoulder, to tuck an arm around Gaby, reaffirming the connection which had first drawn them to each other, so very long ago, and which they had spent so much time inadvertently destroying.

As much fun as it was to tease Illya about his courtship, he was undoubtedly the best among them at _this_ , Napoleon realized. The best at making them feel safe. The best at making them feel loved. Napoleon wasn't certain whether this was what Illya felt for him, but as he melted into Illya's side, he could think of no better word for how he felt than 'loved'.

And for the first time in so, so long, his chest didn't ache with emptiness.

 

**_dublin_ **

More than anything, Napoleon wished there was some simple way to fix things with Gaby. A card he could send, a magic wand he could wave. But far too much had happened for such easy reconciliation.

So it didn't take a day, or a week, or even a month. Because despite how _massively_ he'd messed up that one, big thing, Napoleon knew Gaby. And he knew that what she craved was not grand gestures or obsequious repentance. No, it was the sort of steadiness and reliability which had convinced her, standing on that rooftop in East Berlin what felt like a lifetime ago, to leap into the shrieking, dark void with him. She'd always trusted him with her body. But he knew that he needed to earn that same trust with her heart.

In Dublin, he played the dutiful assistant to her wealthy businesswoman, taking her every whim as an order. Always prepared with a steadying hand as she climbed out of a taxi, ready to hold her umbrella or purse. At first, he did all of the offering; she merely rejected or accepted him, sometimes without a glance, sometimes pausing to search his face with her fox brown eyes before she shook herself and moved on.

He couldn't read her expression during those moments. But he hoped that whatever she was looking for, she found in him.

Two weeks in, having spent the time on surveillance, Illya cornered him with demands of why he wasn't doing more to apologize to Gaby, why he didn't seem to be doing _anything_.

"Look, Peril, she's not..." Napoleon paused to find the right words. "I know I haven't really earned it, the past few months, but just trust me on this?"

Even though Illya probably shouldn't have, he did. And Napoleon kept up the quiet consistency, always at hand, never pressing Gaby for more. Yet after another week, Illya's doubts started to gnaw at him. Maybe he was going too slow. Or worse, maybe he'd simply lost his chance with her forever, this worry coiling around his ribs and squeezing until he felt sick.

And then, just as hope was abandoning him completely, something shifted.

As he'd done every day for three weeks, Napoleon held Gaby's coat while they prepared to leave her hotel room, waiting patiently for her to shrug on the offered garment. Then she toed on her first shoe, the sort of skyscraper stilettos that she still loathed, but wore when her cover called for it. As she shifted to step up into the second shoe, her hand stretched out, seeking something to balance with.

She found his shoulder. Her small hand curled around it, strong for all of the deceptive slenderness of her digits, while she steadied herself against him. Then her hand dropped away, brushing the front of his chest before returning to her side.

As if only just realizing what she'd done, Gaby stilled, glancing up at him.

"Thanks," she said, unadorned, but not harsh. She looked at him for another silent second. Then she retrieved her purse from his hand, her fingers meeting his briefly, and slipped past him towards the door.

It was an _absurdly_ small thing. But it was the first time she'd initiated contact with him of any sort since she'd slapped him in South Africa.

But it was only when it happened again the next day that he began to allow himself a tiny measure of hope. And when it happened again the day after that.

By the end of the week, as they waited on the curb for the towncar, Gaby made an impatient noise, grumbling that they were going to be late. Without hesitation, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist and tugged it up to her face, checking the time on his watch. Then she leaned over and shamelessly began to read his newspaper.

Napoleon glanced away from the words, first at her, hovering all but pressed against his arm, her forehead creasing as she perused the headlines. Then he looked up, across the street, finding Illya in the crowd watching them. Technically, they both should have looked away, pretended not to see each other. But the moment before they did just that, Illya smiled at him.

 

**_vienna_ **

The mission in Austria was relentless, Napoleon getting scarcely an hour to settle in before he was at a swanky bar, quietly collecting intel on the owner, Illya remaining back at the safehouse on the wire, a reassuring presence in Napoleon's ear. The evening glided along like this, charming everyone, the only brief hitch being when he received an invitation out to drinks. With the clear implication of what was wanted post-drinks.

A few months earlier, he would've jumped at such an easy excuse to avoid the temptation of his partners. And even now, he had to push aside his more cowardly instincts to demur. After all, things were better, but still not easy. But taking the easy route had contributed to that mess, so he crafted an excuse and slipped away, returning late to the safehouse and collapsing onto his bed.

In the morning, Napoleon wandered into the kitchen, surmising that Illya was out for a run. Sunlight gushed through the window over the sink, warming Napoleon's skin while he searched the unfamiliar cupboards, discovering that whoever was tasked with maintaining the safehouse had stocked up for them. He located the coffee pot, humming to himself as he fell back into making breakfast, which had been his routine for so long. Before everything had gone sideways and, more often than not, he'd stopped being around to make breakfast.

He was whipping up pancake batter, a fit of whimsy driving him to prepare something more special than usual, when he turned to check on the coffee and froze at the sight of Gaby leaning against the doorway, watching him silently.

"Morning," he murmured, hoping that his tone didn't betray his surprise at her presence. "Breakfast'll be up soon. Pancakes, your favourite."

It was an unintentional olive branch, making pancakes, and when he realized what he'd done, he glanced back down at his hands, anxiety that she'd reject him swirling in his stomach.

"Thanks," she replied after a moment, voice coarse with lingering sleep. She cleared her throat, then spoke cautiously. "You're home early."

"Didn't go anywhere." Pouring the pancakes in neat puddles, he still couldn't look at her. "You sleep?"

"Enough." Meaning, he knew, that she _hadn't_ slept enough. But she continued before he could voice his concern. "Yesterday, at the bar, when you were talking with that woman..."

It took a moment for Napoleon to place the reference, and then he looked over at her, curious. "Wait, I thought it was just Illya on the wire?"

Her shoulders jumped upwards in a shrug, her gaze still affixed on the floor a few feet to his left. "He asked me to take over listening for a few minutes, while he was in the washroom. You were doing fine, so I figured I should just stay quiet. Not distract you." For a half-second, her lower lip disappeared into her teeth. "Why didn't you go out, last night?"

"Didn't want to," he said, close enough to the truth that he could overlook that flash of cowardice. He flipped the pancakes.

"Why? You sounded..." Gaby began, before changing course. "She seemed nice. From what I heard."

"She was," he confirmed simply.

A frustrated huff escaped Gaby's chest. "Will you stop doing that?" At his questioning glance, she explained. "Evading, whenever I ask you things. Why are you still here?"

Napoleon flipped the pancakes onto a plate, turning the burner down before swiveling to face Gaby properly, finding her watching him with dark, wary eyes. Like she was waiting to get kicked in the chest. He swallowed.

"Y'know, Illya can be pretty smart sometimes," he said.

"What does _that_ mean?"

"He pointed out to me, not too long ago, that I couldn't keep running away from things forever." Pausing, he found himself nervously bunching up the fabric of his apron, and forced himself to relax. "And I realized that the partying and all of that shit, that was me running away from stuff I wanted, real stuff, because I didn't know how to handle it." With a self-conscious chuckle, he gestured to the pancakes, the offering suddenly feeling stupidly small. "So, yeah, Illya was right. And I know it's dumb, but this is me. Trying."

For a long, nauseating second, Gaby just stared at him. Then, to his astonishment, she smiled and ducked her head.

"Funny," she said, "Illya told me the same thing. Back in Boston. And he was right then, too."

Napoleon chuckled again, a burst of relief bubbling up from his chest. "Our Peril occasionally gets things right. Don't tell him I said that."

"Our Peril," Gaby repeated, tasting the phrase, seeming to like it based on how she glanced up at him with a grin. "Yeah. And don't worry, your secret is safe with me."

When Illya returned a few minutes later, Napoleon saw him still at the sight of them; Gaby eagerly reducing her stack of pancakes to a syrupy, empty plate, Napoleon sipping his coffee and reading the headlines aloud. They both said their greetings to Illya, who glanced at the two of them before huffing, his lips quirking in amusement.

"Good morning, Chop Shop," Illya murmured, walking over to press a kiss to the top of Gaby's head. She hummed contently and mumbled _something_ through a mouthful of pancakes, either 'guten Morgen' or 'good morning', making both men snort. "And good morning to you, too, Cowboy," he added with a grin.

"G'morning. And hey," Napoleon called as Illya began to turn away. "How come she's the only one who gets a kiss? She's not the one who made you breakfast."

Illya rolled his eyes, fulfilling Napoleon's expectations for his response to the teasing. But then he also dropped a brief kiss to the crown of Napoleon's hair. "There. Now stop complaining," Illya ordered before slipping off to take a shower.

Napoleon didn't stop grinning all morning.

 

**_cairo_ **

Wandering down the hall to Gaby's flat in Cairo, Napoleon hummed to himself, his mood buoyant. The mission was going well, things with Gaby and Illya were slowly but consistently improving, and best yet, he'd found a great sandwich place just a block away from their building, which was convenient since he'd offered to bring lunch to the team meeting.

Receiving a called "it's open" from Gaby when he knocked on the door, he let himself in, hearing her low chuckle from down the hall, floating over the tinny sound of pop music bubbling up from her radio.

"Illya, come on, stop th—"

Sure enough, rounding the corner into the kitchen, Napoleon discovered that Illya had clearly interrupted Gaby's affectionate scolding with his mouth. She was sitting on the countertop, Illya bracketed between her legs, kissing her with overflowing tenderness, his breathtaking hands cupped around her face, gentle, like he could still scarcely believe he'd been granted this privilege.

Gaby's toes, which Napoleon had anointed with carmine lacquer two days earlier, suddenly curled, not tapering into a purposeful _pointe_ but bunching inwards in an artlessly earnest motion which Napoleon would later picture on loop, wondering what Illya had done to earn such a reaction. Hoping that someday, he too would get to please Gaby in that way.

"Should I come back later?" Napoleon drawled through a grin.

Rolling her eyes, Gaby pushed Illya away, corners of her lips tugging upwards to greet the faint flush on her cheeks. The smile that Illya gave her back was almost giddy, with the unrestrained joy of a schoolboy. Freshly kissed, he was just as lovely as Gaby.

Illya, apparently less upset about the interruption than he was hungry, snatched the bag from Napoleon. By the time he sat at the table, he was already unwrapping a sandwich, mumbling something approving about Napoleon's choice before he set to work on devouring it. Meanwhile, Gaby leaned over to turn up the radio, filling the air with the Beatles banging on about wanting to hold your hand, and began grooving along, her head bobbing, legs swinging. She eyed Napoleon for a moment, then stretched her hands out with a beckoning wiggle of her fingers. A little cautious, Napoleon obeyed, not knowing exactly what his place was in the trio right now, but trusting Gaby to guide him home.

Once he was within range Gaby took him by the wrists and tugged him between her knees, exactly where Illya had been moments earlier. She was still grinning, but with a spark of playfulness now, her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. But she said nothing, just moved his captive wrists along to the beat in a ridiculous, lazy sway punctuated by occasional claps.

"Careful, Cowboy," Illya muttered around a bite of sandwich. "She might look innocent, but this is how she starts. Be ready to duck."

Clearly it was an inside joke, which Gaby rolled her eyes at before shushing Illya. But whatever Illya warned him about never transpired. As the song faded, Gaby dropped his hands and reached to turn down the radio. Taking this for a dismissal, Napoleon began to shift out of the harbour of her legs, but was stopped when she, still twisting around, hooked one foot behind his knee.

A moment later she produced from behind the radio the old, finicky lock which Napoleon had given her as a challenge two days previous. Before his delighted eyes, she picked the lock in less than a minute, radiant with accomplishment.

 _God,_ Napoleon thought, breathless from an overwhelming desire to press reverent kisses to all ten of her clever fingertips, _she might be one of the most brilliant people I've ever known._

Once she finally released him, he turned around to find Illya watching them, half a sandwich forgotten in his hand, hints of a smile emerging on his face. Napoleon found his gaze, the thrill of Peril's blue, blue eyes regarding him with such warmth sending something floating in his stomach. Then Gaby bustled between them, settling next to Illya and bumping him with her shoulder, breaking the moment.

It was a good lunch. They all ate their sandwiches, laughing and nearly forgetting to talk about the mission, caught up as they were in each other. Glancing between them, Napoleon let himself think for the first time that maybe, just _maybe_ , they might be able to make this work.

 

**_amsterdam_ **

In the Netherlands, Napoleon was having far too much fun at Illya's expense. The mission wasn't supposed to go this way; the target was supposed to fall for Napoleon, but Illya’s rugged charms were apparently irresistible. An impulse which Napoleon understood all too well. So he found himself sitting on Illya's couch, Gaby curled up next to him, as Illya prepared for his 'date'.

"Should I bother to point out that the door was locked?" Illya commented, glancing at them with surprise as he emerged from the bedroom, buttoning his cufflinks. "Being with you two is like living with cats. Any time I close door, you are sticking paws under it and letting yourself in.”

"I blame Napoleon," Gaby piped up.

"Yeah, because I _forced_ you to learn lockpicking. Not the way I remember it, missy," Napoleon teased. In return she rolled her eyes. "So, Peril," he continued, "think you're up for tonight? I know that seduction isn't typically your approach."

"I'll be fine," Illya huffed. "You aren't the only one here who can flirt."

"Good point, Gaby is quite skilled when she puts her mind to it. But you?" Napoleon turned to Gaby. "He's really not great at subtlety, you have to admit."

"I don't know," Gaby murmured. "You haven't been on the receiving end. He's better than you think." With the way she was grinning at Illya, there had to be a story there. Maybe a few. Napoleon hoped he could coax those from her someday.

"Yes, I am." Illya puffed up at the praise, moving on to his tie, frowning into the air as he absently knotted the silk.

"Make sure to tell him he looks handsome," Napoleon advised, abandoning Gaby on the couch in favour of walking over to Illya and fixing the tie for him.

"I know."

"Compliment his choice of restaurant."

"I _know_."

"Don't forget to—Stop squirming," Napoleon interrupted himself as Illya attempted to bat away his hands. "Don't forget to smile. There, done."

"He's right, you always forget that," Gaby added. "And you look much less murderous when you do smile."

Illya rolled his eyes. Napoleon released him and began to give another pointer, but trailed off when Illya looked at him again. It wasn't one of Illya's usual expressions, grumpy or thoughtful or even goofy. His eyes were bright, his lips quirked in a slight smirk. It wasn't a look he'd seen often on Illya, but it was one he'd rapidly learned to be wary of. When Illya got in a mischievous mood, Napoleon never quite knew what to expect.

"So," Illya said, his voice suddenly rumbling up from deep in his chest in a way which made something twist in Napoleon's gut. "You don't think I can seduce? Hm?"

"Well," Napoleon managed to reply. "I've certainly never seen it. Wasn't sure if you were up to the task."

Illya stalked forward, stopping close enough that Napoleon had to tilt his head back to keep eye contact. "I've never had any complaints, Cowboy.”

"Oh really, _Peril?_ You have moves?"

It was only after he'd made this challenge that Napoleon realized he'd walked right into Illya's trap. When Illya's smirk sharpened into something a little dangerous.

Illya swayed closer still, his blue eyes fixed on Napoleon's. Then they dropped downwards to look at his mouth. Before he could stop himself, Napoleon bit his lip. Inadvertent though it may have been, this move worked. Illya stared at his lips for a long moment. Napoleon used this to advance an inch.

"C'mon, Peril," he murmured, never able to resist tugging the tiger's tail. "Seduce me."

The hesitation which flickered across Illya's face made Napoleon certain, for a second, that he'd tap out. But then he leaned in further, making Napoleon nearly groan in disappointment when he diverted to one side, his breath hot on Napoleon's ear.

" _I'm not going to seduce you_ ," Illya growled softly in Russian, the music of his native speech causing Napoleon's blood to heat. " _I'm going to put you in your place. Pin you against the wall again and take you apart until you're_ begging _me for more._ "

Illya drew back a hair. Napoleon couldn't tell what he was looking at, but then over his shoulder he heard Gaby take a sharp breath.

" _And if you're very, very good,_ " Illya continued, " _maybe she will help me._ "

Images flooded Napoleon's brain, causing his eyes to snap shut, forcing a hoarse curse from his lips. _God_ , Illya was _so close_ and if he just...

"So," Illya said in English, voice suddenly cheerful, entirely unaffected, while he spun and walked away, leaving Napoleon paralyzed in the middle of the room. "This is how I seduce someone. As you can see, Cowboy, it works. Now then, I must go to dinner and seduce someone else. I will be back in a few hours. I know this will be difficult for you two, but don't get into any trouble without me."

Over the rushing of his own heart, Napoleon distantly heard Illya say goodbye to Gaby, whose reply sounded rather strangled.

The door closed.

There was a moment of total silence.

"My _God_ ," Gaby swore breathlessly. "That was—what _was_ that? Did he just...?"

Pivoting to face her, Napoleon had to close his eyes for a second, nearly swore again, at the flush rising on Gaby's cheeks, the sudden darkness of her eyes. His entire body was confused and thrumming and wanting, wanting, _wanting_.

_Don't get into any trouble without me._

Napoleon was going to _murder_ Illya.

"Uh, yeah, guess you were right. He's pretty good at flirting," Napoleon said, clearing his throat after discovering that his voice had dropped an octave.

Gaby stared up at him with those deep, dark, wide eyes. Then she licked her lips.

Actually, Napoleon probably was going to die of want before he got a chance to murder Illya.

"I should—I've got a...thing to do. Paperwork. Uh—upstairs." It was quite possibly the least smooth Napoleon had ever felt since about age thirteen. Which, incidentally, was also the last time he'd felt this _spectacularly_ horny. He took a steadying breath and fantasized about the precise way he was going to murder Illya. It helped.

"Oh. Yeah, of course," Gaby replied. "You're right," she added, something wavering but faintly scolding in her tone, like this was as much reminder to herself as to him. "You really should go."

Napoleon could feel her gaze on him, but he didn't dare return it, realizing that in this moment, Gaby and her bewitching eyes could entrance him into some decisions he'd probably regret later.

Unlike murdering Illya, which still sounded like a fairly reasonable reaction to what the bastard had just done.

 

**_vaduz_ **

Lichtenstein came and went in little more than a week, one of their quickest missions since Rome. Napoleon didn't see his partners much, except on the madcap final day. That evening, Napoleon staggered back to their building with Illya. And though the two of them had, collectively, gotten around eight hours of sleep in the past twenty-four, Illya still extended an invitation back to his flat for celebratory drinks. The sprints between their last few missions had never left enough time for post-mission drinks, so Napoleon accepted, thrilled when Illya gave him the loopy grin of a man beyond tiredness.

Later, when he was slumped on the couch with Illya, a whiskey and a beer in hand, respectively, Napoleon looked over at Gaby curled up in the plush armchair, her legs thrown over one arm and her head tipped back against the other. She'd been quiet the whole night, and Napoleon had given her space for silence, ignoring her bare legs, the little wisps of hair which wandered out of her messy bun and brushed her bare neck, the stripe of skin which kept appearing between her shorts and her top, which she'd stopped fixing sometime in the past hour.

Illya made up for Gaby's reticence, warm at Napoleon's side, goofy with fatigue and alcohol. Peril looked good when he wasn't scowling. A swath of tawny stubble shadowed his jaw, his blue eyes crinkling merrily at some ridiculous Russian pun which he'd made and then spent ten minutes overexplaining to Gaby. Napoleon still didn't know what to make of the flirting in Amsterdam, or Illya's avoidance of the topic, but it probably wasn't the time to press the issue. So he just enjoyed the company and tried not to think too hard about it.

Their party broke up around 3 a.m., when sleep began to catch up to Illya and Gaby was disappearing into the armchair. Illya offered to help clean up, but Napoleon told him to go to bed. After all, those eight collective hours of sleep had not been split evenly, and Peril had definitely been on the losing side of the equation.

Napoleon puttered, collecting glasses, while pretending not to overhear as Illya padded over to Gaby, gave her a sweet kiss, and murmured his goodnight to her. After Illya disappeared, Gaby hauled herself upright with a groan, twisted her back until it let out an audible crunch, then started to gather up the empty bottles, seemingly not quite ready for the night to end.

The dishes could've waited. But Napoleon's sleep schedule was in tatters and he felt oddly alert, so he filled the sink and set to work on the glasses and a few plates from breakfast. His mind wandered freely, getting so caught up that he didn't hear Gaby until she sidled up next to him, passing over a glass which he must've missed in his sweep of the living room.

"Thanks," he said, his voice lowering itself to match the late hour. When she made no response, he looked down at her. "You okay? You've been really quiet tonight."

Staring out the window at a few drunks stumbling down the street, Gaby bit her lip. "I'm good. I..." She paused, hands curling around the rim of the sink. "I was surprised. When you came over. I wasn't sure if you'd be...going out."

Napoleon shook his head. "Wouldn't miss this. Tradition, right?"

"Right."

The silence following her one-word response was long enough that Napoleon struggled not to cut through it. Forcing himself to give her space to think, he washed a glass. Then another. When he dared another look at her, she was already staring up at him.

"You're still here," she said, with the cautious awe of a person who'd wished for something impossible and now struggled to trust it when it came true.

"Still here," he confirmed. "I meant it, when I said I was done running away. I know I spent a long time doing that, but I'm done." At the skepticism in her expression, he explained. "Realized I was missing too much important stuff. I missed this." Before he'd said it, he just meant their post-mission drinks. But after it came out, he realized that 'this' was a lot broader.

Still gazing up at him, Gaby's face shifted, the wariness which she held before herself flaking away to reveal something hesitant but open.

"I've missed you, Gabs," he murmured, his heart doing a jittery skip at the vulnerability of this admission. "You don't have to—This is whatever you want. You decide how much you let me back in. If you let me back in. Because God knows I've been so shitty that you have every reason not to, and I'm sorry for all of that. But I've missed you so much."

Gaby stared at him for an agonizing moment. Then she blinked, looking downwards. Following her gaze, he saw their hands, both wrapped around the edge of the sink, hers tiny next to his, her fingernails cherry pink with the polish he'd applied for her a week earlier. As she continued to say nothing, do nothing, panic bolted through Napoleon's chest, that he'd said too much or not enough. That she'd reject him.

But she didn't.

Instead she tipped sideways, her shoulder bumping his arm, her head slumping against his shoulder. He heard her take a long, rattling breath, a thick swallow. Finally, she turned her face closer.

"Missed you too," she mumbled into his shirtsleeve, words soft around the margins from sleep. "And I'm sorry. Not for hitting you, you deserved that,” she clarified, causing Napoleon to snort, “but for everything else. I was just so—" Her face contracted, the motion carrying from her skin to his. "Don't _ever_ do that to me again. Run away," she added, sharp with hurt. "I'm so sick of losing people. And when you started pulling away I got so scared and I didn't know—I'm trying to work on that but please don't. Not again," she repeated. "I don't know if I could forgive you a second time."

"I'm sorry, Gabs. Never again, I promise." He turned his face down, whispered this vow into the crown of her head. She hummed, body sagging against him slightly as if released from some paralysis. Napoleon chuckled. "We really fucked everything up," he asked, "didn't we?"

She snorted. "Yep, we did." Pressing her forehead into his shoulder, she sighed, her hands dangling forwards, brushing his right wrist before twining around it. "I should go," she said, low with sleep, "Told Illya I'd come to bed soon. But I'll see you in the morning, right?"

"Yep. You want pancakes?"

Gaby pulled away from him with a nod, sending regret shooting through Napoleon, but then she gave him the most _amazing_ grin he'd ever received, which more than made up for the loss of contact.

For now, it was more than enough.

 

**_miami_ **

For all of the early certainty of Napoleon's longing for Gaby, he'd found his feelings for Illya had taken longer to solidify, flitting from infatuation to aggravation, changeable as the wind.

Probably because Illya could be the single most obstinate person he'd ever met.

In Florida, they were back at it again, sniping about a mission decision which hadn't paid off either way, simmering everyone's patience down to dangerous levels. Napoleon knew that his own penchant for smartassery wasn't helping in the slightest, but when things got like this Illya had a singular talent for bringing out the worst in him, and he suspected that the inverse was true as well.

On day four of the low-level feud, Napoleon was awakened at some ungodly hour of the morning by three harsh pounds on his bedroom door and a gruff "get up, Cowboy, we're going running" barked through the wood. The peace offering was rare enough that Napoleon realized he would be a stubborn fool to reject it.

Which was how he found himself gasping and swearing under his breath while his entire body burned, now remembering every single reason why he _loathed_ running as Illya raced ahead, effortless as a gazelle. Napoleon was about to beg off, fake a pulled hamstring—or maybe a stroke, whatever would end this hell—but then Illya chuckled, warm and low, and chided him to stop slacking and hurry up. Big words for a man who'd already stopped twice to pat cute dogs.

The morning light made Illya shine, Midas-touched. It was utterly unfair just how handsome he was, and a crime that he usually hid this under threatening glares and those damn turtlenecks. Yet free and happy like this, he was the very image of masculine beauty. The sort of man whom some Italian renaissance sculptor, an especially unabashed breed of artist, would choose for a muse.

As Napoleon caught up to Illya, chest afire and head spinning badly enough to make him wheeze under his breath that he might _actually_ be having a stroke, Illya grinned down at him, a bit crooked and a bit fond and a lot entrancing, and Napoleon suddenly recalled why he'd come along.

Illya took pity on him then, even if Napoleon did have to ignore a crack in Russian about giving 'the old man' a rest. Instead, Napoleon staggered over to a nearby low wall and sat down, focusing on slowing the heaving motions of his chest to stave off his own imminent demise. After a moment Illya joined him, sitting close enough that their bare, sweaty shoulders occasionally touched, sending giddy sparks up Napoleon's spine.

"Sorry for all of the..." Illya began, trailing off with a vague gesture, which Napoleon interpreted as meaning 'everything'.

"Me too," Napoleon said. "What's been going on with you lately? You're even more cantankerous than usual."

Illya rolled his eyes, as he so often did when Napoleon employed what Illya deemed 'unnecessarily fancy' words, but then his expression turned serious.

"Has been a tough mission for me. And I..." Illya's hands grappled with each other for a moment. "Gaby and me, we are trying to talk to each other more now, about things between us. It's still difficult. We are both very..."

"Stubborn?" Napoleon supplied.

"That too," Illya said with a snort. "But what I mean is, she and I, we both tend to hide things. We are getting better, but takes work. I mentioned to her, other day, that I'm okay with you becoming part of... of what we have."

"...And?" Napoleon forced himself to ask, every nerve in his body tense.

"She said she needs to think about it. I think she seems open to this, but only she can tell you for certain." Illya bit his lip, his forehead creasing slightly before he continued. "I have been thinking about Barcelona, too. And Amsterdam. Was very unsure, for a long time. But seeing her with you recently, I realized again how happy you two are, when you're together. She makes me see the best in you, Cowboy."

"Really?"

Illya nodded, his sweat-dampened hair flopping against his forehead. Then he looked over at Napoleon, those impossibly blue eyes searching his face before he glanced away.

"And this made me realized that I was...not letting myself see you fully," Illya admitted in a fragile whisper. "Because I was worried about what she might think. But now," he added, "I'm glad you're here with us. I think now that the three of us are good for each other." Perhaps sensing that the mood had become too serious, Illya looked down at the ground for a moment, then his eyes flicked back to Napoleon, a mischievous smirk emerging on his face. "Even if you are a terrible spy."

"Yeah, yeah," Napoleon retorted, grinning right back. "Absolutely hate working with you too, Peril."

He still wasn't certain what would happen between him and Illya, but for two people who both tried to kill each other during their first meetings, he figured that they had come a long way.

 

 

* * *

 

_where would I be running to?_

 

_You are a million different reasons to_

_stop._

 

* * *

 

 

 

**_london_ **

In the end, for all of the heartbreak it took to get there, it's simple.

It's the simmering midst of July, a full two weeks without missions spread out before them. At Napoleon's left, Gaby is breathtaking in her mint green dress, her legs aswing while she's perched on his kitchen counter, plucking strawberries from the bowl that Napoleon holds between them. On her other side, Illya stands, shirtsleeves rolled up, suds clinging to his wrists while he washes their dinner plates.

Everyone is loose, with that sort of languid, faintly overheated laziness that only July and August can bring on. The afternoon light is golden on Gaby's bare arms, Illya's tousled hair, both diffuse and glowing around the edges in a way that has Napoleon suddenly thinking of Pissarro; who painted such summery radiance better than any other impressionist.

Catching his attention again, Gaby leans closer, her shoulder warm against his arm as she helps herself to another strawberry. Napoleon can't quite stop staring at either of them, especially not when she gives him a dazzling look and demands another story. Caught in the pull of that smile, he finds himself swaying a little closer, and grinning back at her.

They've been having more and more of these little moments lately. Nothing has quite come of them yet. But this time Illya breaks the silence.

“Umeret' so smehu, ah," he mutters peevishly. "Potselui ty eyo uzhe! Inache otveshu tebe horoshego pendalya dlya skorosti.”

A surprised bark of laughter leaps up Napoleon's throat. He glances over to Peril, finding him, too, grinning, mischievous and faintly impatient. After a moment of staring, they both break into absurd chuckles, shaking their heads.

"What? What did he say?" Gaby demands, looking between them and scowling when neither provides a translation. She wraps her hands around Napoleon's arm and tugs. "Come _on_. You know I hate it when you do that."

Napoleon finds Illya's gaze, needing him to be certain. Illya nods.

"He said," Napoleon begins, turning back to Gaby, something warm and fluttering filling that place behind his heart that was so achingly empty for so long, "that he's going to hurt me if I don't hurry up and kiss you already."

Gaby bites her lip, which still doesn't stop a grin from slipping free and overtaking her face.

"Well then." Her gaze suddenly turns serious, though she can't fully wrangle the smile back into submission. She arches an eyebrow. "You'd better hurry up."

Napoleon pauses, wanting to get this right, make it sweet and loving and everything he's wanted to show her for so long, but Gaby makes an impatient noise and tugs him down. She tastes like summer, tart strawberries and sugar, and when he sets a hand on the valley of her waist she hums in contentment. She pulls away first, sending Napoleon chasing after her before he can stop, her expression gleeful by the time he opens his eyes.

For the next kiss, it's him who moves first, surging towards her, groaning in surprise when she matches his fervour with a nip at his lower lip. He might want to keep doing this forever.

The second time they part, Illya chuffs in amusement, the sound drawing Napoleon's attention.

"Pink is a good colour on you, Cowboy," Illya says, swiping his thumb across Napoleon's lips. "Better on her, though."

Giddy and full of mischief, Napoleon lets his tongue catch the edge of Illya's thumb. Illya's throat bobs. So he pulls Illya in for a kiss that may not be their first, but is the first which means the right things. This time it's _exactly_ what he'd expected of Illya, gentle, soft, both of them grinning just enough for it to be imperfect and a little messy and completely addicting. As they open up to each other, deepening the kiss, Napoleon feels Gaby wrap herself around him, her lips finding a spot behind his ear that makes him shiver.

It's an easy choice, then, to kiss her again. And to kiss Illya. And to keep kissing them both

 

* * *

 

Much, much later, when Illya is drowsy and sweaty against Napoleon's side, Gaby soft atop his chest, peering down at him, she suddenly breaks the silence.

"I can't believe you wasted so long being a complete idiot when we could've been doing _that_ instead."

Illya snorts into his shoulder. Napoleon still can't stop grinning at either of them.

"Yeah, fair enough. But I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only idiot here," Napoleon points out. "And besides, I fully intend to make up for lost time," he purrs, expecting Gaby to roll her eyes, intrigued when instead she bites her lip. He hadn’t meant _now_ , and had thought she was done too, but he sets an experimental hand low on her back, fingers just brushing the curve of her rear, and Gaby squirms, ever so slightly. He’s not going to be ready to go again for the next while, but the thought of coaxing more sounds of pleasure from her is impossibly appealing, so he lets his hand drift lower, delighted when her fingers clench around a handful of his chest hair.

"I make mistake," Illya mumbles in a vexed moan, words muffled against his pillow. "Never should have encouraged you two. Could barely keep up with Gaby. And now, both of you, egging on each other? I will never get _anything_ done."

"Oh hush, Illyushenka," Gaby says, crawling over to flop on Illya's back, dropping a kiss between his shoulder blades. Illya produces a grumbly little hum, flushing slightly at the nickname but reluctantly pleased. "Your life would be so boring without us."

"Sometimes boring is good," Illya insists petulantly. "You two are all surprises. Nothing but trouble."

"I don't know, that thing Napoleon did to you sure seemed like a _pleasant_ surprise."

Even though Illya's eyes are closed, Napoleon can tell that he rolls them. But he also doesn't dispute this, making Napoleon grin broaden. He leans over to kiss the nape of Illya's neck until he is rewarded with another grumbly hum, this one more contented than annoyed.

"Yeah, c'mon Peril, admit it, you like having us around."

Napoleon intends this as a throwaway quip, but hears a thread of vulnerability weave into his own voice, scowling self-consciously. He shouldn't _need_ either of them to give him such reassurance that he's wanted. But of course, Gaby and Illya are both far more perceptive than the average person, and both turn to look at him. Just as he's about to spin it into a joke, Illya reaches over, cupping the side of his face with one beautiful, big hand.

"Glad you're here with us, Cowboy," he says, sincerity warming every syllable, relieving some deep tension that Napoleon hadn't even been aware he was carrying.

"Me too," Gaby confirms. She leans up, elbows digging into Illya's back and provoking a bearish grunt, and presses the gentlest of kisses to Napoleon's forehead, Illya's thumb still stroking his cheek, and suddenly Napoleon needs to screw up his eyes and clear his throat to banish a surge of desperate emotion rising up from his chest. _God_ , these people, who make him feel things he'd never thought he could feel. Who helped drag him away from the path he'd been travelling straight back into thievery, just by making him want something out of life, something real.

Gaby graces him with another kiss, this one landing butterfly-soft on his freshly damp eyelid, Illya gentling him with a low hum. Napoleon forces himself to focus on their touch, clears his throat again and walks himself back from turning into a weeping wreck, which might end up happening at some point in the future, but he doesn't want to spoil their first night together like that. When he opens his eyes again, Gaby greets him with another light kiss before climbing off Illya to curl tight, almost protectively, around his side.

"Okay?" Illya asks.

Napoleon nods, not trusting his voice yet, and tugs Gaby a little closer, leans further into the hand which Illya has let fall from his cheek to the nape of his neck. Willing himself to relax, he sighs, long and low, looking between his partners, their presence soothing his fit of nerves. It's something he'll have to work on, he realizes; trusting that he's actually wanted.

But for now, with Gaby stifling a yawn against his shoulder, Peril's breaths beginning to slow and deepen, Napoleon decides that there are no issues here that can't wait until morning.

 

* * *

 

Napoleon wakes the next day, blinking in the pale light until he comprehends the vision of Gaby's bare back, a field of gold, disappearing under the tumbling shadow of her dark hair, her hips the centre of a white whirlpool of sheets.

 _Degas_ , he thinks, his half-awake brain taking a second to catch up to its own reference before he remembers. _Degas' bathers._ Those stunning nudes, rendered in ephemeral pastels on fading paper, feminine elegance typified.

Then Gaby snorts in her sleep, tilting her head, a little bead of drool dangling from the corner of her mouth, reminding him firmly that unlike those artistic fantasies, Gaby is reality itself. But no less perfect for it.

Perhaps the oddest thing about this first morning together is the normalcy of it all. Peril's already out for his run, and Gaby is still dead to the world, so Napoleon takes a shower and starts making breakfast, same as ever. Illya gives him a light peck on the lips when he returns, but doesn't linger, heading for the bathroom himself. When Gaby emerges, unshowered, hair piled messily at the base of her neck, she asks what's for breakfast, pouts when Napoleon informs her that it's not pancakes, and then tells him that he has to do her nails later because she's getting bored of this colour.

During breakfast, Gaby and Peril get into a friendly but fierce debate over the merits of Soviet cars, the conversation starting in English and somehow migrating to German halfway through, both of them vibrant and passionate and ridiculous. Same as ever.

Napoleon watches them, and he wants, wants, _wants_.

But this time, he grins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, thanks as huge and tall as Illya to my darling beta, bioticsandheadshots, who has graciously listened to me scream about this fic for the ten painful months of its gestation, who walks me back when my pretentions get the better of me, and whose comments keep me going when all I want to do is quit.
> 
> Secondly, thank you to Kathi. I am forever glad that out of all the people I could've delurked to, I chose you.
> 
> Thirdly, Kathi gets another thank you! To her for wonderfully thorough discussion of the varying tones of how to say "goodnight" in German. And enormous thanks to my friend Summer, who provided the amazing Russian translations for this fic.
> 
> Fourthly, the transition quotes are from 'New' by Yrsa Daley-Ward, from her lovely book of poetry, _Bone_.
> 
> And lastly, I make no apologies to Renoir or Gauguin for calling them out on being shitty artists and shitty human beings, respectively, because they both deserve it.


End file.
